It was far from normal for the entire school to attend classes together, but for Defense Against the Dark Arts, it had become standard for students from all four Houses of the same year to share lessons together.
Because the “fairy-tale-style story” training method required a relatively long amount of time, the two originally scheduled periods for second through fifth years were directly merged into one large class.
This meant that each of the seven year groups only needed one lesson, and the N.E.W.T.
classes counted as another large lesson.
In total, only eight classes a week were required.
Lockhart had achieved this, the absolute limit of what the other professors could tolerate, with barely any effort at all, from the busiest professor at Hogwarts to the most relaxed.
“Perfect!” “I’m a genius!” Inside his office, Lockhart stood with his hands on his hips, laughing smugly.
He laughed so hard that his whole body shook, making him look absurdly flamboyant and charming.
But midway through, his expression suddenly stiffened.
Damn it!
He had just realized that he had acted practically identically to the Lockhart he remembered!
“So after pretending for so long, I’ve become Lockhart?
Or was this always my true nature deep down?” “Or is it a problem caused by stuffing too many chaotic memories into my head?” He frowned, finally realizing the seriousness of the issue.
After all, the original Lockhart had ultimately become a complete idiot.
Seriously, who had ever become a fool just because of an Obliviate spell?
If Obliviate really had such terrifying side effects, Aurors around the world would never use it so casually on Muggles.
In the original story, Lockhart was only hit by the backlash of his own Obliviate spell.
A simple counter-charm should have solved the problem, yet he ended up spending the rest of his life as a broken, mentally unstable invalid in St.
Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
“Hiss…” He sucked in a cold breath and rubbed his face hard, telling himself not to panic.
Panicking would achieve nothing.
The golden retriever sensed its master’s emotional fluctuations immediately.
It dropped the gem-studded shoe it had been playing with curiously and climbed up his trouser leg and onto his shoulder.
It tilted its little head in confusion and looked at him.
“Gooji?” Lockhart reached up and took it off his shoulder, placing it in his lap while absentmindedly stroking its cool, fluffy little head as he pondered.
“Looks like I can’t wait any longer.
I need to find a Pensieve and sort through my memories as soon as possible!” Many people feared using Pensieves because, once memories were stored inside them, the Pensieves themselves would retain records of every memory ever placed into them.
Nobody wanted others to see their embarrassing, shameful, and deeply hidden secrets.
In the wizarding world, a wizard’s pensieve would generally be buried alongside its owner because it was considered an extremely private possession.
The only unusual Pensieve that Lockhart knew of was the one at Hogwarts.
Successive Headmasters and Headmistresses had all used it, leaving behind fragments of their life experiences in the form of memories.
Over time, it had become an invaluable reference library for the current Headmaster or Headmistress.
This was not something that the current Lockhart could casually ask Albus Dumbledore to lend him.
After some thought, he sat down at his desk and wrote to Carcassius Burke, owner of Borgin and Burkes, asking for help in finding an unused Pensieve.
Back when Lockhart was hunting the memories of powerful wizards, he often acquired valuable items along the way.
Most of the time, it was this shop owner who helped him sell those goods on.
The man had an incredibly powerful network of connections.
He came from the so-called ‘Sacred Twenty-Eight,’ specifically the Burke family.
His grandmother, Bellwina Blair, was the daughter of Phineas Black, one of Hogwarts’ former headmasters.
He ran the biggest shop in Knockturn Alley and held great sway over Dark Wizards.
In the original story, the Burke family secretly controlled one of Hogwarts’ hidden passageways: the Vanishing Cabinet.
This allowed them to freely enter and leave the supposedly heavily guarded magical school.
Unfortunately, the cabinet was later damaged, and later generations forgot about its significance, eventually selling the priceless family heirloom.
Lord Voldemort had even once worked for Borgin in his youth.
After becoming the Dark Lord, Voldemort never returned to kill his former employer, which proved that Mr.
Borgin truly understood the art of dealing with people.
If Lockhart needed a Pensieve, he was definitely the right person to ask.
During this period, Lockhart was extremely active around the school.
Wherever he went, he caused a commotion.
But if you looked closely, you would see that aside from teaching classes, he did almost nothing else.
He began teaching younger students simple spells more suited to practical combat scenarios, such as Alarte Ascendare, thereby improving their combat capabilities.
(PS: In the original work, aside from Lockhart’s awkward use of Alarte Ascendare against the small snake that Draco Malfoy summoned with Serpensortia, Dumbledore also used the spell during his battle against Voldemort at the Ministry of Magic.) Original work: Order of the Phoenix, Chapter 36).
Whenever spell demonstrations were required, he would invite exceptional students to perform on stage.
Many young wizards were eager to show off, including Hermione, the twins, Cedric, Percy, and many others.
As for the middle and upper years, it was even simpler.
Fifth-year students had to take the O.W.L.
exams at the end of the year, while seventh-year students faced the N.E.W.T.
exams.
Lockhart adopted a strategy of endless mock exams and intensive test preparation.
He trained students according to the requirements of the exams, filled in gaps in their knowledge, tailored instruction to their individual talents, and did his best to ensure that every young wizard could at least pass, while selecting exceptional students to aim for perfect scores.
This kind of work posed no challenge for Lockhart.
There were far too many things he could teach young wizards, such as how to organize the knowledge in their minds into interconnected systems that reinforced one another.
In this regard, even the original Lockhart knew less than he did.
During this period, every student familiar with Professor Lockhart knew that he would be in the library reading books whenever he had free time.
Despite already being so knowledgeable, he was a wise scholar who continued studying tirelessly.
Even Minerva McGonagall praised him for setting such a wonderful example.
He was truly worthy of being a Ravenclaw.
But, in reality, Lockhart was searching for another solution to his problem.
The results were poor.
There were simply too many books in the Hogwarts library for him to search through one by one; it was like looking for a needle in an ocean.
He might even need to find a bottle of Felix Felicis, the potion that brings good luck, to help him.
Fortunately, he had gained something from the experience.
He found a spark of inspiration in a miscellaneous book titled ‘You and Me Under Emotional Trauma’.
The book told the story of a witch who had lost her lover and set out on a journey of self-discovery.
Inside was a pivotal line: “When she realized that she could never return to who she once was, that she was no longer her former self but an entirely new person, she finally understood why her spellcasting had become so clumsy…
her wand no longer suited her…” However, there was one key difference.
While the witch in the book merely became worse at casting spells, Lockhart couldn’t cast magic at all.
Nevertheless, it was clearly a promising line of thought.
Perhaps replacing his wand with one more suited to his current self would have some effect.
And so, the weekend finally arrived.
Before the morning sun had reached its highest point, Lockhart had hurriedly finished marking all the essays handed in by the students.
Despite the anxiety rising within him, he still patiently handled all of it first, driven by his damned sense of responsibility.
Stretching lazily, Lockhart packed his things and prepared to leave.
There wasn’t actually much he needed to bring.
He made sure he had enough Galleons, then stuffed the small cosmetic box containing the Boggart into the pocket of his wizard robes.
If he encountered a hostile wizard, he could throw it out to buy himself some time.
After hesitating for a moment, he turned to look at the golden retriever squatting on the windowsill, basking in the sunlight and gnawing on nuts.
“Can you promise not to attack anyone unless I order you to?” The golden retriever understood him perfectly; it simply couldn’t speak.
It raised its little head, and its fragmented golden eyes blinked beneath the sunlight, making it look like a fluffy ball of yarn.
It nodded.
“I’m taking you with me.” Lockhart scooped the dog up and stuffed it into his wizard robe pocket before setting off to look for Severus Snape.
There were three main ways to travel from Hogwarts to other places.
One option was to take the train from Hogsmeade Station, which was located near the small woods beside the Black Lake.
However, this method was too slow.
Another option was to use Apparition from the bridge connecting the castle complex, but Lockhart couldn’t perform this spell.
The final option was to use the fireplace network.
The Headmaster’s Office and the offices of all four Heads of House had one.
Lockhart understood social interaction well.
If you constantly asked others for small favors that could easily be granted, they would gradually feel closer to you because you ‘owed’ them.
Unfortunately, Lockhart was met with a closed door.
He knocked for quite a while without receiving any response.
After asking some passing students, he found out that Snape had taken the older students to Hogsmeade village that day.
Well, there was no helping it.
He would go and look for Professor Sprout, the Head of Hufflepuff.
She should be in the greenhouses at the moment.
Having already troubled Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall far too often, Lockhart didn’t want to bother those two busy people over such a small matter.
As he walked through the side gate of the castle and passed the Quidditch pitch, he suddenly heard a burst of shocked cries.
Startled, he turned his head and saw the crowd scatter suddenly.
In the center, Ron let out a ‘bleegh’ towards the ground in front of him.
A gigantic, slimy slug shot out of his mouth.
Eugh…!
Lockhart leaned backward slightly with the expression of an old man staring at a phone on the subway.
Magical damage!
He recognized it instantly.
The Anti-Vomit Charm…
a standard counter-charm to this jinx with broad applications.
His mind immediately recalled seven or eight advanced variations of the Anti-Vomit Charm.
The key problem was…
He couldn’t cast a single one of them!
Run immediately!
Lockhart made his judgment at once.
Pretending to be deeply troubled by some difficult problem and completely oblivious to the outside world, he attempted to quietly slip away from the side.
“Professor Lockhart!” One of the students spotted him and shouted excitedly.
“Great!
Professor Lockhart is here!” Among them all, it was Hermione who shouted the most enthusiastically.