The two of them pushed open the door to the office, which also served as the professor’s bedroom, and immediately saw an owl perched on the windowsill beside a large crate.
It was the largest owl Hermione had ever seen, bigger even than an eagle.
It glanced at them once before lowering its head again to continue eating the exquisite food that had been specially placed on the windowsill to tempt postal owls like itself.
Lockhart walked over and lifted the crate, noticing a letter attached to it.
Written on the envelope were the words: Congratulations to Gilderoy Lockhart on becoming the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
The signature below read: Hibiscus Ravenclaw Society.
“Ravenclaw Society?” Hermione asked curiously, standing on tiptoe to peek.
Seeing Professor Lockhart about to open the envelope, she tactfully turned her head away.
“It’s a club organized by Ravenclaw graduates.
I asked some alumni to help me find a few Dark Creatures to use as teaching materials for the class.” It was only after seeing the package that Lockhart recovered this memory from the original owner.
He unfolded the letter, and his eyebrows rose immediately when he saw a familiar name on it: Alastor Moody.
Mad-Eye Moody.
A retired Auror.
It was said that half the prisoners currently rotting in Azkaban had been sent there by him personally.
Everything in this crate had been prepared with his help.
Moody was a Gryffindor, but his wife was a Ravenclaw and one of the founders of the Hibiscus Ravenclaw Society, as well as its first president.
They say even the fiercest men can be tender.
Moody’s personality was eccentric and paranoid, yet he was extraordinarily gentle towards his wife.
He often accompanied her to help out at the society, working tirelessly for decades without complaint.
Now his wife had already passed away, but Moody still remained in the club to which she had devoted most of her life.
Everyone knew this was because of his feelings for her.
Lockhart opened the crate.
Taking up two-thirds of the space was an oversized birdcage containing a swarm of tiny, iron-blue creatures…
Cornish pixies.
His expression immediately became strange.
Knowing the original story, he was all too aware of the chaos these pixies would cause and the tremendous damage they would inflict upon his reputation.
Yet he had never expected Mad-Eye Moody to be the one who had prepared them for him.
Lockhart, whose past experiences practically qualified him as a Dark Wizard…
And Moody, the old Auror who despised evil with a passion?
What an interesting relationship.
After a moment’s thought, Lockhart sat down at the desk, took out a gilded quill and a sheet of fine parchment, and started to write a reply to Moody.
Naturally, he thanked him first for preparing all of this.
More importantly, though, he asked about the scope of the general examinations for Hogwarts students in their fifth and seventh years: the Ordinary Wizarding Levels (O.W.L.s) and the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.W.T.s).
These two major examinations were overseen by the Wizarding Examinations Authority under the Ministry of Magic.
Perhaps Moody could help gather some information.
Out of a sense of responsibility and self-awareness, Lockhart felt that the best thing he could do for Hogwarts students was to avoid delaying their futures.
He had ways of accomplishing the following: reinforcing knowledge based on examination content and providing targeted practice to help students achieve better grades.
“There’s actually quite a lot I can do, isn’t there?” At the very least, aside from the true masters of this world, there probably weren’t many wizards more knowledgeable than him.
This was either due to Lockhart’s original understanding of the magical world or his own understanding of the Muggle world as a transmigrator.
After finishing the reply letter, Lockhart continued to unpack the crate.
There were only three items inside.
Aside from the large cage of Cornish pixies, the second item was an old-fashioned red cosmetic box.
It looked ancient, with chipped paint exposing the wood beneath.
Knock, knock, knock.
Something inside the box tapped against the lid and asked cautiously, “Is someone out there?
Could you save me?
I’m trapped inside.” Hermione’s eyes widened instantly.
She covered her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
“It’s a Boggart.” Lockhart turned the box over and saw the label attached to it.
“I’ve read about this kind of creature in books,” Hermione whispered instinctively, lowering her voice as though afraid the monster inside might notice her.
“The books say it can transform into the thing a person fears most.
But I didn’t know it could talk.” Casually setting the box aside, Lockhart explained to the curious girl.
“Boggarts are probably among the most common creatures in the wizarding world.
Some that live in wizard households imitate human speech or wander around wearing tattered robes at midnight.
If you’re brave enough, you can chat with them to relieve your loneliness late at night.” Hermione recoiled dramatically.
“I don’t want to chat with one!
Who would be so bored that they’d talk to a monster?” There were such people.
And one was standing right in front of her.
The original Lockhart had once talked with a Boggart for an entire night.
It wasn’t because he found it interesting; it was because, despite making friends everywhere, this young man, who had left his family in the Muggle world and ventured alone into magical society, was actually deeply lonely inside.
All the countless words hidden in his heart…
He would only tell them to monsters.
He only dared to tell them to monsters.
Because people were far scarier than monsters.
Hermione, of course, didn’t see things that way.
This was especially true when Lockhart took out the final item in the crate: It was a small jar painted with bizarre, childlike, colorful patterns.
The moment she saw it, goosebumps spread all over her body as though a cat’s fur were standing on end.
An indescribable terror slowly crawled out of the depths of her heart, clogging her throat and rising to her lips.
She wanted to scream in horror, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out.
She wanted to flee in panic, but her legs felt like wood and refused to obey her.
“Damn it!
The lid wasn’t sealed properly!” Lockhart’s voice seemed to come from very far away, stretched out and distorted into broken fragments.
She vaguely heard the professor running around in alarm, presumably to retrieve his wand, as she hadn’t seen one in his hand earlier.
‘Hurry…
please…
hurry…’ Hermione was on the verge of tears.
She could feel it…
A furry little hand clutched her pant leg and slowly climbed upwards.
Then another hand.
Then another.
She had no idea what kind of monster this was, but her heart was already almost completely consumed by fear.
She wanted to resist, but the instinctive paralysis that humans experience in the face of overwhelming danger left her frozen to the spot.
She couldn’t even tremble.
The creature moved quickly.
It rummaged through her pockets and the pockets of her wizard robes, then grabbed onto her robes and climbed upwards.
Hermione’s eyes widened to their limit, filled with utter terror.
Finally, she saw a pair of pitch-black eyes.
Then, the eyes blinked.
On closer inspection, she could see dark golden patterns within the black pupils, giving them the appearance of beautiful gemstones.
Oh no…!
For some reason, she suddenly had the strange feeling that the creature was looking at her eyes in the same way.
Then two furry little hands reached out and cupped her head.
Another furry hand moved towards her cheek, then her eye socket, and lightly hooked inward.
Pop!
It sounded like the cork being pulled from a wine bottle.
Then her vision became horrifyingly distorted.
While the eyeball remaining in her left socket maintained its original field of vision, the vision from her right eye swayed back and forth with the movement of that tiny hand.
!!!!
The monster had plucked out her eyeball!
No!
Hermione wanted to scream, but she couldn’t move.
Just as she was about to break down completely, a broad, warm hand suddenly appeared before her.
The palm was open, revealing a pile of cat’s-eye gemstone buttons that had clearly been torn from clothing with force.
One of them still had loose threads attached.
“Hey~!” Lockhart’s voice rang out.
“Maybe you’d prefer these.
Cat’s-eye stones are much prettier than eyeballs, aren’t they?” “Gugi~” The monster’s voice sounded soft and tempting.
Its hand gestured invitingly.
“Go on, take them.
Don’t be shy.
But you have to give her eye back first, all right?” The creature hesitated for a moment but eventually nodded.
Holding the eyeball delicately, it replaced it in Hermione’s eye socket.
Her vision immediately returned to normal.
It was hard to tell how long it took for the terror filling her heart to slowly fade away.
Suddenly, Hermione shuddered violently and looked around frantically.
She saw Professor Lockhart gripping a small, golden, furry monkey by the back of its neck and stuffing it back into the jar.
The monkey wasn’t very big.
When it was curled up, it was smaller than a football.
It had three little hands.
Had she not just experienced that horrifying attack, she might have squealed about how adorable it looked.
But now she wanted nothing to do with that monster.
Click.
Finally, the creature was completely stuffed back inside, and Professor Lockhart tightly screwed the lid shut.
The fear vanished entirely from Hermione’s heart.
She sucked in a cold breath abruptly and began to pant heavily.
“I’m sorry.
I didn’t notice earlier that the lid wasn’t fully sealed.” Lockhart apologized while rummaging through a wardrobe.
He took out several bars of chocolate, unwrapped one, and handed it to her.
“Eat some of this.
It’ll help.” “What…
what is that thing?” Hermione asked timidly in a tiny voice, nibbling at the chocolate.
“It’s a Three-Legged Creature.
It’s a rather uncommon dark creature.
It fills the human heart with fear, rendering people unable to move while it searches for gemstones it likes.
If the victim doesn’t have any, it plucks out their eyeballs for its collection.” Lockhart carefully placed the small jar on a nearby shelf before continuing his explanation.
“St.
Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries has specialists in dark creatures who raise these monsters specifically so they can remove patients’ eyes or other organs and soak them in healing potions.
Of course, knowledgeable Dark Wizards also use them to help create certain evil magical artifacts.” Hermione swallowed hard.
For the first time, she gained a completely new understanding of the magical world, with all its wonders and terrors.
Beyond its wondrous magic, it was also filled with countless horrifying and bizarre things.
(End Of This Chapter)Keep it onTurn Off