Chapter 14: The Pensieve, the Wand, and the Slug
Having the entire school take a class together was far from normal, but having the students from all four houses in the same year take Defence Against the Dark Arts together was now established.
Since the "fairy tale romance" exercises required a relatively long time, the two originally scheduled classes for second to fifth years were directly combined into one long class.
This meant that all seven year levels only needed to attend one class, plus the N.E.W.T. class, which could roughly be considered the equivalent of one long class period, resulting in only eight classes per week.
Going from the busiest professor at Hogwarts to the most leisurely professor, Lockhart had only made a slight move, which was the limit for the other professors.
"Perfect!"
"I'm simply a genius!"
In his office, Lockhart strutted around with his hands on his hips, laughing so hard he swayed like a flower in the wind, his laughter particularly enchanting. But as he laughed, his expression suddenly turned serious.
Damn it!
He suddenly realized that his smug and self-satisfied appearance was exactly the same as the Lockhart in his memories!
"Am I becoming Lockhart just by pretending? Or is this my true nature deep down?"
"Or is it a problem caused by too many jumbled memories in my head?"
He frowned, realizing the seriousness of the issue.
He knew that the original Lockhart eventually became an idiot!
Just asking, who becomes an idiot because of a Memory Charm?
If the Memory Charm had such a terrifying effect, the Aurors of various countries and magical ministries wouldn't use it so casually on Muggles.
In the original story, he was just hit by the rebound of his own Memory Charm. A simple counter-charm could have solved it, but Lockhart spent the rest of his life as an imbecile in a magical hospital.
Hiss~~~
He sucked in a breath of cold air and vigorously rubbed his face, telling himself not to panic, as panicking wouldn't help.
Goldie, the little monkey, keenly sensed its master's emotional fluctuations. It dropped the bejeweled shoe it had been curiously playing with, climbed up his trouser leg to his shoulder, and tilted its head, looking at him with some confusion.
"Goo-jee?"
Lockhart reached up, took it from his shoulder, and held it in his arms, unconsciously stroking its cool, furry little head as he pondered.
"It seems I can't wait any longer. I need to find a Pensieve as soon as possible to sort through these memories!"
Many people were afraid to use a Pensieve because after memories were placed in it, it would record all the memories that had been stored.
No one wanted others to see those embarrassing, shameful, and unknown secrets deep within their hearts.
In the wizarding world, wizards' Pensieves were usually buried with their owners because they were very personal items.
The only somewhat special one Lockhart knew of was the Pensieve at Hogwarts.
The Pensieve had been used by generations of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses. They had also left their life experiences in the form of memories, making it a valuable library providing various reference data for the current headmaster or headmistress.
This was not something the current Lockhart could casually ask Dumbledore to borrow.
He thought for a moment, sat down at his desk, thought again, and wrote a letter to Caractacus Burke, the owner of Borgin and Burkes, hoping the latter could help him find an unused Pensieve.
When Lockhart used to hunt for the memories of powerful wizards, he would often acquire some valuable items along the way, and he often used this shop owner to help him fence them.
This owner had extremely strong connections, coming from the Burke family, one of the so-called "Sacred Twenty-Eight" pure-blood families. His grandmother was Belvina Black, the daughter of a former headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Phineas Black. He ran the largest shop in Knockturn Alley and had a great influence among dark wizards.
In the original story, the Burke family also controlled one of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry's secret passages, the "Vanishing Cabinet," allowing free access to the supposedly heavily guarded magic school. However, the Vanishing Cabinet was later damaged, and the descendants forgot this information, so this valuable family heirloom was directly put up for sale.
Voldemort had even worked for this owner when he was young, and after becoming the Dark Lord, he didn't think about coming back to kill his former boss. It could be said that Mr. Borgin had a certain way of dealing with people.
If he needed a Pensieve, finding him was definitely the right choice.
In the following period.
Lockhart appeared to be particularly active in the school, causing a sensation wherever he went, but if one really looked closely, they would find that he actually did nothing except teach classes.
For the lower-year students, he began to universally teach simple spells more inclined towards practical application scenarios, such as "Evanesco" (Vanishing Charm), to improve their practical combat abilities.
(ps: In the original story, apart from Lockhart using "Evanesco" very clumsily against the small snake released by Draco Malfoy's Serpensortia, Dumbledore also used this move when fighting Voldemort in the Ministry of Magic. Original "Order of the Phoenix" Chapter 36)
When spellcasting demonstrations were needed, he would call excellent young wizards to the stage to perform. There were too many young wizards willing to show off, such as Hermione, the twins, Cedric, Percy...
For the middle and upper years, it was even simpler. The fifth year had the Ordinary Wizarding Level exams at the end of the year, and the seventh year had the Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests. It was like preparing for the national college entrance examination: three years of simulation for the fifth year's exam.
He focused on cultivating according to the exam requirements, filling in the missing basics, teaching students according to their aptitude to find outstanding areas, trying his best to ensure that every young wizard could pass, and then selecting excellent young wizards to strive for all distinctions.
This was not difficult for Lockhart.
He had too many things he could teach the young wizards, such as how to organize the knowledge structure in their minds and make them a system of mutually corroborating knowledge.
Even the original Lockhart didn't understand this aspect as well as he did.
During this period, the young wizards familiar with Professor Lockhart all knew that whenever he had free time, Professor Lockhart would be reading in the library, a wise man who continued to read even though he was so knowledgeable.
Even Professor McGonagall praised him for setting a very good example for the young wizards, truly a child of Ravenclaw.
But in reality, Lockhart was looking for other solutions.
The effect was not good. There were too many books in the Hogwarts library, and he had to search through them one by one like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Perhaps he should also find a bottle of Felix Felicis, a potion that could bring good luck, to help.
Fortunately, it wasn't without any gains.
He found some inspiration from a miscellaneous book called "You and Me Under Emotional Trauma."
The book told the adventure story of a witch healing herself after losing love.
It mentioned such a key piece of information: "When she realized she could never go back, that she was no longer the person she used to be, that she was a completely new person, she finally discovered the reason why her spellcasting had become so clumsy—her wand was no longer suitable for her..."
However, there was some difference.
The witch in the book had become clumsy in casting, rather than being completely unable to cast like Lockhart.
But this was clearly a good line of thought.
Changing to a wand that was suitable for his current self might have some effect.
And so, time finally came to the weekend. When the morning sun had not yet reached its highest point, Lockhart, hurrying but also taking his time, finally finished grading all the essays submitted by the students.
This damn sense of responsibility! Even though he was a bit anxious in his heart, he still patiently handled these tasks well.
Stretching, Lockhart packed his things, preparing to leave.
He didn't need to prepare much. He needed to have enough Galleons, and also to put the small cosmetic box containing the Boggart into his wizard robe pocket. This thing could be thrown out to block hostile wizards for a while.
He hesitated for a moment, thought about it, and then looked at Goldie, the little monkey, who was squatting on the windowsill basking in the sun and gnawing on nuts.
"Can you promise not to attack others without my command?"
Goldie understood. It just couldn't speak. It tilted its small head, its splintered golden eyes blinking, looking like a fluffy ball of yarn in the sunlight.
It nodded.
"I'll take you out."
Lockhart scooped it up with both hands and stuffed it into his wizard robe pocket, preparing to go find his senior, Snape.
There were three proper ways to leave Hogwarts to go elsewhere. One was to take the train from Hogsmeade Station outside the small forest by the Black Lake, but that was too slow. Another was to Apparate from the viaduct of the castle complex, but Lockhart couldn't Apparate.
The last way was to use the fireplace, which was available in the Headmaster's office and the offices of the heads of the four houses.
Lockhart knew how to socialize. He constantly asked others for help with small troubles that could be easily resolved, and the other person would feel closer to him because he owed them.
Unfortunately, Lockhart was turned away. No one answered after he knocked on the door for a long time. After asking a passing student, he learned that Snape had taken the upper-year students to Hogsmeade Village today.
Well, there was no other way. He would go find Professor Sprout, the Head of Hufflepuff House. She should be in the greenhouses now.
He usually troubled Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall too much with work, and Lockhart didn't want to bother these two busy people for such a small matter.
Walking out along the side door of the castle, passing the Quidditch pitch, he suddenly heard a burst of exclamations.
He turned his head in astonishment and saw the crowd suddenly scatter. In the very center, Ron made a retching sound towards the front.
A huge, slimy slug was vomited out.
Ewww~~~
Lockhart leaned back slightly with an old man subway phone expression.
Magical damage!
He saw it at once.
The Vomiting Charm, the standard counter-charm for this jinx, and it had a wide range of applications.
He had seven or eight upgraded techniques for the Vomiting Charm in his mind.
The key problem was—he couldn't cast any of them!
Quickly slip away!
Lockhart immediately made a judgment, pretending to be troubled by a difficult problem and lost in thought, not noticing the outside world, and was about to slip away from the side.
"Professor Lockhart!" A young wizard spotted him and shouted excitedly, "Great, Professor Lockhart is here!"
Among them, Hermione shouted the most excitedly.
!!!
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