Inside, the classroom smelled of fresh paint and parchment, with an underlying whiff of something floral—Lockhart’s cologne, probably.
Tobias inhaled sharply through his nose, then exhaled through his mouth, the way he did when he wanted to disappear into the background.
The portraits lining the walls were all variations on a theme: Lockhart grinning, Lockhart winking, Lockhart mid-duel with some unseen horror, Lockhart rescuing villagers from what looked like a very clean, well-lit troll.
The man had range, if nothing else.
Hannah nudged Tobias toward a pair of seats near the middle—not too eager, not too reluctant.
The perfect distance for observing without being observed.
She slid into her chair with the ease of someone who’d spent years navigating the unspoken rules of school seating charts.
Tobias followed, his robes whispering against the wooden chair as he sat.
At the front of the room, Lockhart’s desk was a shrine to himself.
Stacked copies of *Gadding with Ghouls* and *Travels with Trolls* formed precarious towers, each crowned with a small, framed photo of the author shaking hands with himself in different exotic locales.
A quill lay across an open page of *Magical Me*, as if he’d just paused mid-autograph.
Lockhart swept into the room behind the last stragglers, his robes billowing in a way that suggested practice in front of a mirror.
He clasped his hands together.
“Welcome, welcome!
Second-years, is it?
Splendid!
You’re in for *quite* the year, I assure you.” His gaze flicked to Tobias again, lingering just a second too long before moving on.
Tobias kept his face neutral.
Lockhart himself was at the door in lavender robes greeting the second-years one by one.
His hand lingered on Justin Finch-Fletchley’s shoulder just a fraction longer than necessary, as if checking for something beneath the fabric.
“Ah, another bright mind from Hufflepuff!
And how *are* you finding your second year so far?” Justin blinked.
“Er.
Fine?” “*Fine*,” Lockhart repeated, tasting the word like it was an under-seasoned soup.
“Well!
We’ll improve on that, won’t we?” He clapped Justin’s shoulder again before moving down the line, pausing at each student with a quip, a chuckle, or—in Hannah’s case—a dramatic gasp at her “excellent posture, my dear, simply *regal*.” Tobias watched him work the room with the detached fascination of someone observing a zoo exhibit.
The man moved in precise arcs, always ensuring his best angle caught the light.
By the time Lockhart reached the front desk, Tobias had counted seven distinct smiles, each calibrated for maximum charm.
“Now!” Lockhart spread his arms wide, robes flaring.
“Who here has faced *true* darkness?” Silence.
A few exchanged glances.
Lockhart sighed, as if deeply disappointed by their lack of near-death experiences.
“No matter.
Today, we begin with something *far* more perilous than your textbooks suggest.” With a flourish, he yanked the velvet cover off the cage on his desk.
The pixies erupted in a screeching, electric-blue blur.
One snatched Justin’s glasses mid-air.
Another upended an inkwell over Ernie’s half-finished essay.
A third latched onto Justin’s ears and *lifted*, his feet kicking uselessly inches above the floor.
Across the room, Ernie’s bag sailed upward, strap snagging on the chandelier where it swung like a pendulum.
Lockhart raised his wand.
“*Peskipiksi Pesternomi!*” Nothing happened.
He tried again, louder.
“*PESKIPIKSI PESTERNOMI!*” The pixie dangling Justin sneezed.
Lockhart cleared his throat.
“Right.
Well.
You three—” he pointed vaguely at Hannah, Tobias, and Anthony Goldstein, who’d been quietly Vanishing pixie droppings with a grimace, “—handle this, would you?
Capital opportunity for *practical* learning!” And with that, he ducked behind his desk and left the room.
The door clicked shut.
Hannah exhaled through her nose.
“Petrificus Totalus,” she said, and two pixies froze mid-air, dropping like stones into Anthony’s outstretched robe.
Tobias watched the remaining pixie tear pages from *Magical Me* with gleeful malice.
Somewhere, he thought dimly, this was probably funny.
Anthony raised his wand with the precision of someone who’d practiced the spell exactly once—successfully—in Charms last week.
“Petrificus Totalus,” he muttered, and the third pixie stiffened mid-air, its tiny fingers still clutching a torn page of Lockhart’s grinning face.
It hit the desk with a sound like a dropped quill.
Tobias took a breath.
The fourth pixie was zigzagging near the ceiling, trailing ink from its claws.
He lifted his wand.
Missed.
The spell fizzled out halfway.
Missed again—the pixie somersaulted, cackling.
Third attempt: his wrist flicked, the incantation sharpened to a point.
The pixie froze mid-dive, inches from Ernie’s horrified face, and plummeted into Anthony’s waiting hands.
Behind them, a Ravenclaw girl—dark-haired, her nose buried in *The Essential Defence Against the Dark Arts* since Monday—snapped her book shut.
She didn’t bother with a wand.
Just opened the cage door and whistled, high and piercing.
The remaining pixies startled, then flocked to her like disgraced pigeons, shoving each other inside.
She latched the door with a click.
The room exhaled.
Someone snorted.
Then Justin, still glasses-less, squinted at the ink-smeared wreckage of his essay and said, “Well.
That’s one way to start the year.” The laughter started slow, uncertain—until Hannah picked up a crumpled page of *Magical Me* and folded it into a very precise paper airplane.
It sailed across the room, nosedived into Lockhart’s abandoned chair, and the class dissolved.
Even Ernie, ink-streaked and pixie-bitten, was wheezing into his sleeve by the time the bell rang.
The door swung open.
Lockhart swept in, lavender robes miraculously unrumpled, as if he’d spent the last ten minutes practicing his smile in the hallway.
“Ah!
I see you’ve *handled* the situation.
Excellent work, everyone!
Five points to—” His gaze skated over the wreckage: the ink-splattered walls, the shredded textbooks, Justin’s glasses dangling from the chandelier.
“—to *all* of you.
Teamwork!” Tobias caught Hannah’s eye.
She pressed her lips together, hard.
Anthony coughed into his fist.
The Ravenclaw girl sighed and reopened her book.
The class ended with most of the room laughing.and the first-years gaping at them from the benches as they passed.
The corridor sloped upward, uneven stone worn smooth by centuries of feet, and Tobias adjusted his pace to match Hannah’s.
Ernie cleared his throat.
“He *is* an award-winning author,” he said, with the tone of someone who knew this was a losing battle but felt obligated to fight it anyway.
Hannah flicked a bit of pixie fluff from her sleeve.
“Award-winning *liar*, more like.
Did you *see* that spell?
*Peskipiksi Pesternomi*?” She dropped her voice into a wobbling imitation of Lockhart’s baritone.
Justin chuckled, nudging Ernie with his elbow.
“Come on, mate.
Even you’ve got to admit it was a bit—” he waved a hand, searching for the word, “—unorthodox.” “Unorthodox,” Hannah repeated flatly.
“*Unorthodox* is Flitwick letting us levitate teacups instead of feathers.
Not abandoning a room full of twelve-year-olds to fend off enchanted pests while you—” She mimed primping her hair.
Ernie’s ears pinked.
“He might’ve had a reason.
A *strategic* reason.” Tobias kept his eyes on the shifting hem of Justin’s robe ahead of him.
The fabric swayed with each step, revealing glimpses of scuffed loafers.
He could’ve pointed out that Lockhart’s strategic reason was likely not being able to cast the spell he’d just made up.
He could’ve mentioned the way Lockhart’s gaze kept snagging on Justin’s shoulders, Tobias’s collar, the Ravenclaw girl’s book—anywhere but the disaster he’d unleashed.
He didn’t.
Justin shot Ernie a look.
“Right.
Strategic.
Like how he ‘strategically’ forgot to mention he’d be leaving?” The Great Hall doors loomed ahead, oak darkened by age and polish.
Hannah pushed them open with more force than necessary.
The scent of roast chicken and pumpkin pasties washed over them, warm and familiar.
Tobias exhaled.
Defence Against the Dark Arts was going to be restful this year.
No one was learning anything.
Thursday’s Charms lesson proved the summer hadn’t been a fluke.
The feathers came out again—smaller this time, dove-grey instead of white—and Flitwick’s instructions were crisp, pared down to the essentials.
*”Flick, don’t push.
The wrist does the work, not the forearm.”* Tobias went through the motions twice, adjusting his grip minutely between attempts.
The first try sputtered, the feather twitching like a drowsy moth.
The second—clean lift, six inches off the desk, hovering steady as Flitwick turned from the Ravenclaw table.
The professor’s clap was a single, sharp sound.
No commentary, no fuss.
Just approval, and then he was moving on, leaving Tobias with the quiet satisfaction of a thing done *right*.
Wednesday’s Transfiguration was less triumphant but still marked.
McGonagall’s matchsticks lay in precise rows, each waiting to be turned to silver.
Tobias’s first attempt produced a faint metallic sheen at the tip—better than last year’s charcoal smudge.
His second and third tries fizzled, but the fourth— The matchhead gleamed dully in the afternoon light, unmistakably silver if not yet smooth.
McGonagall passed behind him, paused.
He caught the lift of her eyebrow in his periphery, the almost imperceptible incline of her chin.
No praise, but no criticism either.
Just acknowledgment.
By Friday evening, the week’s accumulated fatigue settled into his bones.
The common room fire crackled low in the grate, painting the worn armchairs in amber.
Tonks stumbled past, her robes singed at the hem, muttering about *”bloody Vanishing Spells”* and a *”very surprised owl.”* Tobias stretched his legs toward the warmth, flexing his fingers absently.
Small improvements.
Tiny, really.
But his.
The second-years had claimed their usual cluster of armchairs by the fire, trading stories between mouthfuls of treacle tart pilfered from dinner.
Ernie leaned forward, his shadow stretching long across the rug.
“My cousin says Lockhart once spent three hours charming his hair to stay perfect during a windstorm in Wales.” Hannah snorted into her butterbeer.
“Bet he used the time to practice his *signature*.” She mimed a looping flourish in the air.
Justin flicked a crumpled napkin at Ernie’s head.
“Your cousin’s full of it.
Lockhart wouldn’t last three hours in Wales *without* magic.” Tobias watched the napkin arc lazily toward the fire, disintegrating midair.
The flames hissed softly, swallowing the ash.
He flexed his fingers again—still faintly sore from Wednesday’s matchstick attempts.
The common room door banged open.
Tonks’s pink hair preceded her, singed robes swirling as she beelined for their circle.
She vaulted the arm of Tobias’s chair with the grace of someone who’d practiced the move on every piece of furniture in the dorm.
“Move your feet,” she ordered, dropping onto the cushion he’d been using as a footrest.
Her knee knocked against his, warm through the fabric.
The conversation stuttered briefly—fifth-years didn’t usually crash second-year gossip—but Tonks just stole Hannah’s butterbeer and took a swig.
“So,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, “how many of Lockhart’s books did he assign for summer reading?” “All of them,” Justin groaned.
Tonks grinned.
“Brilliant.
Bet he didn’t mention chapter twelve of *Gadding with Ghouls* where he—” She dropped her voice to a whisper.
“—*accidentally* charms his own socks to dance the foxtrot.” Ernie’s mouth opened.
Closed.
Hannah cackled, nearly upending her drink again.
The firelight caught the singed edge of Tonks’s robe as she shifted, revealing a patch of scorched fabric shaped suspiciously like an owl’s silhouette.
Tobias exhaled through his nose.
The first week of Year 2 had passed without incident—no midnight duels, no cursed objects, no life-threatening disasters.
Just Charms drills and Transfiguration repetitions and one spectacularly failed Defence lesson they’d be laughing about for months.
Tonks looked him over and told him he looked taller.
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.