Ever since receiving a handwritten letter from Dumbledore at the end of June, Lockhart had been hesitating over whether he should accept Dumbledore's invitation to take the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts.
To be honest, being a professor at Hogwarts was indeed a respectable profession, and the salary and benefits were quite good, but the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was a special case.
When Lockhart was a student at Hogwarts, he already knew that something unfortunate happened to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor every year, forcing them to quit the job. Many previous Defense Against the Dark Arts professors were even sent to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries due to various troubles.
Chapter 462