The dark creature known as the Three-Legged Creature was unable to fill Lockhart’s heart with fear.
This was partly due to the chaotic noise of countless memories clamoring within his mind.
Another reason, however, was the methods, or rather, the state of mind, of an experienced wizard.
Courage.
Not Gryffindor-style courage, but Ravenclaw-style courage.
The courage required for combat magic was passionate and intense.
However, the courage needed to face Dark Creatures was a mentality, often calm and tranquil.
Lockhart had this mentality, an innate talent that allowed him to remain unaffected by the negative emotions associated with many Dark Creatures, including the infamous Dementors that guarded Azkaban.
The wizarding world had always been about talent.
Magical creatures for Hagrid and Newt.
Combat charms for Harry Potter.
Magical inventions for the Weasley twins.
Even Ron, the most overlooked member of the original trio, had unparalleled linguistic talent.
He could effortlessly imitate Harry’s Parseltongue and Peter Pettigrew’s voice, displaying astonishing aptitude in charms and language-based magic.
Of course, talent alone wasn’t enough.
Wizards had to know how to utilise their talents and find environments that would allow them to do so.
Those gifted in dark magic should become Dark Wizards.
Those skilled in combat and flexible with rules should become Aurors.
Lockhart claimed that Severus Snape would have become weaker than he was during the First Wizarding War if he had not continued researching dark magic in secret after betraying Voldemort and choosing Dumbledore by coming to teach at Hogwarts.
This is because his mindset would have been damaged and he would have strayed from his natural talent.
Of course, people change.
When one’s mentality changes, so does one’s talent.
Who could say for certain?
Consider Lockhart himself, for example.
He didn’t mind being considered a Dark Wizard at all.
That was why he greedily refused to extract the memories in his mind, including those belonging to the dozen powerful wizards and the original Lockhart.
In the wizarding world, this was actually very simple.
With the proper technique, all that was required was to place a wand against one’s head and extract the memories one by one.
It was that convenient.
For someone like him, who had inherited Lockhart’s supreme mastery of the Memory Charm, accomplishing such a thing was easy.
Having arrived in a world filled with magic, he did not want to become an ordinary Muggle again.
Instead, he wanted to find a way to process all the memories in his mind, along with the emotions, thought patterns, values, and mental states they contained.
If his previous life had been in the wizarding world, then he would definitely have been a Ravenclaw.
He instinctively knew how to think about talent and make use of it.
Hermione did not stay long in the office.
The Boggart inside the peeling cosmetic box was shouting loudly, and the Cornish pixies were shaking their cage violently.
This made her feel as though the monsters were about to escape at any moment.
After she left, Lockhart closed the doors and windows before opening the jar again and releasing the Three-Legged Creature.
“Gugi!” The golden, furry little monkey blinked its large eyes curiously at him.
Its third arm, which grew from beneath its right armpit, curled against its chest and abdomen.
Lockhart picked up a large apple from the desk and split it in two.
He handed one half to the creature.
“Want some?” “Gugi~” After a moment’s thought, the little monkey reached out to take it and cautiously bit into it.
Its eyes immediately lit up.
It held the apple in both hands and chewed bite after bite with remarkable seriousness.
“Hahaha!” Lockhart burst into hearty laughter and stroked the monkey’s head.
“From now on, you’re not allowed to leave my office without my permission.
If you can manage that, I’ll find you tasty things to eat every day.
Deal?” The chewing stopped.
The little monkey hesitated, looking at the apple in its hands before glancing towards the door.
“If you refuse, then I’ll have no choice but to keep you locked inside the jar.
But I know your kind is special among dark creatures, you like sunlight.
Maybe I could build you a little nest by the window?” The monkey clearly understood him.
It turned its head towards the window, looking confused.
It was nighttime now.
There was no sunlight.
“Have you never basked in the sun before?” Lockhart smiled at it.
“Trust me, you’ll like it.
I understand creatures like you very well.” Many wizards held the stereotypical belief that dark wizards preferred lurking in dark alleys and dark creatures preferred damp, shadowy corners.
This three-legged creature had obviously been raised that way by its previous handlers.
Distinguishing between wild and domesticated dark creatures was actually easy.
Those that spent long periods around humans could understand human speech and communicate more easily.
That was an easy thing to judge.
But who knew which Dark Wizard’s home Mad-Eye Moody had confiscated this creature from?
“Gugi~” In the end, the little monkey nodded and raised its third hand in front of him.
Lockhart shook it solemnly, officially sealing their deal.
This did not mean that the creature had fully accepted the arrangement, however.
It merely meant that it had decided to cooperate.
If it later discovered that this cooperation greatly harmed its own interests, it would no longer abide by the agreement.
Still, it was a good start.
Taming a Dark Creature was no easy task.
In fact, Lockhart could have simply left it sealed inside the jar.
Dark creatures were not living beings in the ordinary sense.
They did not eat, drink, age, reproduce, or die like normal creatures.
Academically, they were classified as ‘non-existences’ or ‘non-human supernatural phenomena.’ But Lockhart himself was also terribly lonely.
Like many people, he had things he could neither tell nor dare tell other people.
Keeping a monster as a pet wasn’t necessarily a bad idea.
“From now on, your name is Golden Retriever.” Lockhart chuckled as he named his new pet.
But very soon, he could no longer laugh.
The moment he sat down at his desk and officially entered work mode, ready to take on this year’s teaching responsibilities seriously…
his gaze suddenly froze.
“What kind of insane nonsense is this?!
” He couldn’t stop himself from screaming, causing the Golden Retriever to tilt its head at him in confusion.
Lockhart was so shocked that his mind went completely blank and his pupils trembled violently.
The Golden Retriever clamped the apple in its mouth and climbed up the chair leg with all four limbs until it perched on Lockhart’s shoulder.
Lowering its head curiously, it looked at the thin sheet of paper in his hands, puzzled as to why its new master suddenly radiated such intense fear.
Not even it could accomplish that.
Yet this single piece of paper had managed it.
The creature examined it carefully but, naturally, couldn’t understand the words written on it.
The paper was the Defence Against the Dark Arts class schedule.
That in itself wasn’t the problem.
The truly horrifying part was that Lockhart had never realized just how absurd it was for a school with seven grades and four houses to have only one Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
And unlike Potions or Transfiguration, where two houses attended together, Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were taught separately for each house.
First-years weren’t too bad.
Each house only had one class, meaning there were four classes in total.
But from the second to the fourth year, each house had two classes, making eight in total.
Fifth-year students had combined double-period classes, which still amounted to eight classes.
It was only in the sixth and seventh years that all four houses were finally combined into large classes.
This meant…
forty classes every single week!
The entire schedule was packed to the brim, leaving no free time whatsoever.
And that wasn’t even the worst part.
Professors also had the critically important N.E.W.T.
classes, in which they selected suitable students for continued instruction in preparation for the final wizarding examinations after the fifth-year O.W.L.
examinations.
These lessons weren’t listed on the schedule at all.
The professors had to guide those students continuously throughout the week, essentially acting as mentors to apprentices.
“Hissss~” Lockhart sucked in a sharp breath, feeling as though he was about to faint on the spot.
At that moment, he developed immense respect for Severus Snape.
If he remembered correctly, Snape had once taught Defense Against the Dark Arts part-time in the original story.
Part-time?!
What kind of joke was that?!
On top of his own Potions classes, additional DADA classes, Head of House duties, nighttime patrols around the castle, relentlessly targeting Harry Potter, and refereeing all kinds of school affairs, such as Quidditch matches…
On top of all that was the utterly monstrous workload of lesson preparation and marking homework.
Could Severus have simply never had time to wash his hair because he was too busy?
No, no, no!
Lockhart suddenly realized something even more horrifying.
Right now, Severus wasn’t even teaching DADA part-time!
Based on his memories of school and his current schedule, the two busiest professors at Hogwarts were probably himself and Professor Binns.
But Professor Binns was a ghost.
Ghosts don’t need to eat, drink, or sleep.
He did!
If he kept this up for a whole year, he might actually become the second Professor Binns!
With a workload like this, Voldemort wouldn’t need to curse the position.
‘Who on earth could survive this?’ “Professor Dumbledore!” “Professor Dumbledore!” Without hesitating for a moment, Lockhart grabbed the timetable and rushed towards Dumbledore’s office.
He couldn’t wait a moment longer.
Since he didn’t know the password, he could only stand outside and shout.
Actually, he knew he should probably speak to Professor McGonagall instead.
She had most likely arranged the schedule, while Dumbledore probably didn’t personally manage such matters.
However, disturbing a lady in the middle of the night was not appropriate.
After shouting for quite some time, the gigantic stone gargoyle at the entrance finally folded its wings aside.
Lockhart immediately rushed onto the moving spiral staircase behind it and entered the office.
Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, wearing a pink wizard robe adorned with countless silver moon-and-star sequins.
A steaming cup of coffee and a mountain of documents sat before him.
Hearing the footsteps, he raised his head.
A glint flashed across his crescent-shaped glasses as he narrowed his eyes slightly.
“Running around the school carrying a Dark Creature like that is not a very good idea, Professor Lockhart.” Lockhart froze for a moment before reacting immediately.
He hurriedly yanked the Golden Retriever off his shoulder and stuffed it into the pocket of his robes.
Such rough and casual treatment of such a powerful Dark Creature caused Dumbledore’s eyebrows to rise slightly in surprise.
“Visiting so late at night… May I ask what brings you here?” Lockhart opened his mouth, but when he saw the imposing figure of Dumbledore before him, he suddenly didn’t know what to say.
What was he supposed to say?
That the workload was too heavy?
This was utterly shocking to him, but it was probably completely normal to Dumbledore, who had once taught Defense Against the Dark Arts himself in his younger days.
“Well… it’s like this…” Lockhart’s mind worked extremely quickly.
By the time he reached the desk from the doorway, he had already come up with an excellent idea.
“Regarding teaching, I have a rather brilliant proposal.
I wonder if you have the time to hear it?
My apologies, I was so excited that I completely failed to notice the time.” Dumbledore gestured towards the empty chair opposite his desk, inviting Lockhart to sit down.
Removing his glasses, he leaned back in his chair somewhat tiredly.
“Go on,” he said.