After an exciting and unforgettable mini-lesson on defending against Dark Creatures, each of the young wizards received a piece of chocolate as a reward.
“This is the best remedy for calming your mind after experiencing negative emotions,” Professor Lockhart said with his usual celebrity confidence.
“Go ahead and have some chocolate.
If one isn’t enough, you can always ask me for more.” He held up the chocolate with a flourish.
“It’s the Honeydukes ‘Professor Lockhart Signature Edition,’ specially made just for me.
If you look closely, you’ll find my signature printed on the back.” Hermione had already started unwrapping hers.
The moment she heard that, she hurriedly smoothed out the creases in the wrapper and carefully tucked the chocolate into her robe pocket while no one was looking.
‘A signed chocolate…
from Professor Lockhart…
I’m so happy…’ She couldn’t believe she’d actually eaten the one he’d given her before.
What a terrible mistake!
Things like this meant everything to her.
The autographed copy of ‘Magical Me’ that Professor Lockhart had signed for her at the Start-of-Term Feast was still tucked beneath her pillow every night while she slept.
Harry exchanged an odd look with Ron.
A signed chocolate?
A week ago, they would have mocked something that over-the-top without hesitation.
But now…
for some reason, it actually seemed perfectly fitting for Professor Lockhart.
Whatever the case, the lesson was finally over.
Professor McGonagall had plenty of work waiting for her and was the first to leave, with the students filing out after her.
Lockhart stopped Draco before he reached the door.
Naturally, Harry, Ron, and Hermione immediately slowed to a crawl, pretending to leave while shamelessly trying to overhear.
“Next lesson,” Lockhart said, “bring Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle with you.” Draco blinked.
“Crabbe and Goyle?” His face twisted with obvious disbelief.
“To attend ‘your’ lesson?” Lockhart smiled and nodded.
“Having simple minds doesn’t mean they have no future in magic.
Quite the opposite.
I’d say people like them are, in a way, more wizard than most.
They have tremendous potential.” Draco thought about that for a moment.
Then, looking slightly embarrassed, he asked, “Professor…
could I bring Pansy Parkinson too?” Pansy was his girlfriend.
Well, they were childhood friends, perfectly matched in status and upbringing, with both families’ full approval.
Lockhart burst out laughing.
The usually proud young Malfoy immediately turned bright red.
“Of course.” Still smiling, Lockhart patted him on the shoulder.
The more students he taught, the wider his influence would spread.
Why would he say no?
That did leave one small problem.
With one extra student, pairing everyone up for practice would become awkward.
So he called out to the three children who were obviously eavesdropping.
“Hermione.
Next time, you can recommend another student to join us.” Hermione almost replied that she didn’t really know anyone to recommend.
She wasn’t exactly popular, besides Harry and Ron, she didn’t really have any friends.
Before she could answer, Ron quietly nudged her from behind while Harry whispered, “Go on.” She quickly nodded.
“Okay.” Harry and Ron had absolutely no intention of letting Draco’s side outnumber theirs.
Lockhart found that rather satisfying; it looked like his little Duelling Club was about to grow.
When he’d accepted the teaching position at Hogwarts, one of his goals had been to build connections.
After all, valuable relationships weren’t limited to fellow professors.
At the same time, history had proven one thing over and over again: being socially skilled alone would never create real influence.
In the end, true strength had to come from within.
— For the entire following week, whenever he wasn’t teaching his regular classes, running the Duelling Club, or instructing the N.E.W.T.
students, Lockhart devoted almost all of his time to practicing the three spells he had mastered: ‘Obliviate’, inherited from the original Lockhart, and the Healing Spell and Summoning Spell he had learned from the Forest Witch.
The results were excellent.
As his casting became smoother and his state of mind aligned more naturally with each spell, he began to sense a unique bond forming between himself and his wand.
Its nature was gradually changing.
Instead of simply reflecting the innate properties of its applewood body and unicorn hair core, it was slowly adapting to ‘him’…
his body, his soul, and his magic.
Little by little, it was becoming ‘his’ wand.
And as that bond deepened, every spell he cast became noticeably more refined and more powerful.
The Flower Healing Spell improved steadily through Lockhart’s relentless practice.
Combined with everything he had absorbed from the Forest Witch’s memories, it reached the point where it could heal fairly large external wounds and even minor internal injuries.
His Grey Wolf Pack summoning spell had also made progress.
He still couldn’t summon more than a single wolf, but unlike before, when it vanished after less than three seconds, the wolf could now stay around long enough to carry a bag of trash over to the corner and drop it into the waste bin.
The only drawback was that both spells required a forest environment.
At the very least, they depended on healthy, thriving trees nearby.
That also explained why the Forest Witch’s first instinct in an unfamiliar place had always been to reshape the surrounding environment with magic.
The spells were powerful; they just came with conditions.
Lockhart was already more than satisfied.
Whenever he had free time, he happily shut himself inside his office and cast the spells over and over again.
It wasn’t diligence anymore… It was addiction.
Like someone hooked on a favorite game, he simply couldn’t resist casting magic again and again, each successful spell filling him with the same sense of wonder and delight.
The golden three-legged monkey was especially fond of the summoned grey wolf.
It loved jumping onto the wolf’s head and riding around while the wolf obediently carried it.
Eventually, summoning flowers and the grey wolf became nothing more than a game between wizard and magical creature, the office often filled with the sound of the two of them laughing.
Magic brought happiness.
To Lockhart, that was magic’s greatest meaning.
He had come to this magical world full of excitement.
If, when his journey finally ended, he could leave with no regrets after enjoying every moment of it…
Tthat alone would make this life complete.
— It wasn’t just the Forest Witch’s spells that fascinated him; the original Lockhart’s mastery of ‘Obliviate’ proved just as entertaining.
During his experiments, Lockhart discovered something incredibly interesting.
When he viewed a memory inside his own mind, he experienced it exactly as the memory’s owner had, through their own five senses.
But when that same memory was placed inside a Pensieve, everything changed.
He was no longer limited to the memory owner’s perspective.
It was exactly like the first memory he had extracted during his experiments, that elderly wizard’s memory.
The old wizard had been asleep at the time, yet inside the memory, Lockhart could actually see the original Lockhart stealing the old man’s memories.
The Pensieve was an astonishing magical creation, allowing someone to step directly into the time and place of a memory as though they were really there.
Of course, it wasn’t without limits.
Lockhart tried wandering farther and farther through extracted memories, but eventually he discovered the boundary: you couldn’t leave the setting of the memory itself.
In the old wizard’s dream, for example, he could stroll through the streets and listen to the drunken ramblings of a drunkard by the roadside, but he couldn’t enter other people’s homes or leave that remote Spanish village altogether.
Even so, it was endlessly fascinating.
Exploring someone else’s memories felt like embarking on a fairy-tale adventure unlike any other.
— As always, the happy days flew by.
Several days later, Professor McGonagall received another letter from her nephew-in-law, Mr.
Urquhart.
The creature haunting the castle had now been positively identified: it was a ‘Wrongfully Slain Fairy’.
Knowing what it was, however, didn’t solve the problem.
These days, finding a wizard who actually knew how to deal with one was no easy task, so Professor McGonagall came to Lockhart once again, hoping to ask for his help.
Young Urquhart’s letter was full of sincerity.
He promised that if Professor Lockhart agreed to assist, he would earn the friendship of the Urquhart family, which would be an invaluable asset for the future.
The Urquhart family’s influence extended throughout the European wizarding world, and sooner or later, connections like that would prove useful.
There was also a much more tangible reward: Lockhart would be allowed to choose any one item from the family’s private collection of magical artifacts or rare magical books.
These weren’t treasures that could be bought on the open market.
It was, by every measure, an offer too good to refuse.