It seemed that in the original book, Harry had once gone to the Department of Mysteries at the Ministry of Magic to stir up trouble; as a professor who went after that "Savior" student out of concern, nobody should hold him responsible for that, right?
This might be his only reasonable opportunity to enter such a heavily guarded institution!
Lockhart's eyes lit up.
Of course, that matter was still quite far off and would have to wait until Harry's fifth year. From this perspective, even if he finished his term at Hogwarts and left the school a year from now, he shouldn't cut ties with Harry.
"Ha-ryyy... Pot-ter!"
A shout suddenly came from outside, followed by several mingling voices that broke the office's tranquility.
Lockhart looked toward the door in astonishment, suddenly remembering that for the sake of security, he had invited Draco Malfoy and the Hermione trio over for training.
With these two factions gathered together, a peaceful state was clearly out of the question. Ron's and Draco's fathers frequently engaged in the affectionate pastime of beating each other up, not to mention how much Harry and Hermione loathed Draco.
Perhaps...
He should also drag Draco's two little sidekicks—Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, those young pure-blood scions—into this "tutoring class."
Balance, as Lockhart felt through the conflicting yet mutually checking memories in his mind, was something he had vast experience with.
The clamor outside grew louder.
Young Master Malfoy certainly didn't rest just because the other side had three people; supreme venomous banter brought supreme enjoyment, as he wildly humiliated Ron—who had previously spoken ill of Professor Lockhart behind his back, only to start buttering him up after receiving a wand. His proud voice sounded full of fighting spirit.
However, he quickly paid the price.
Someone else had arrived.
As the young wizards chanted a respectful greeting of "Professor McGonagall," the overly sharp-tongued young Master Malfoy inevitably received a scolding.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
The door was knocked upon.
"I am so sorry, Professor Lockhart. Am I disturbing you by visiting at this hour?" Professor McGonagall said very politely from outside.
"Not at all, not at all. Please wait just a moment."
While listening to Malfoy and the others hurling insults at each other, Lockhart had already scrambled up and briskly begun packing away the Pensieve, which was already stained with memory traces. This thing absolutely could not be shown to others!
Stuffing such a large magical artifact into a palm-sized small cloth bag truly required a bit of skill. The original owner for some reason had never used Undetectable Extension Charm items before, leaving him inexperienced and somewhat flustered.
There were also things like Felix Felicis that needed to be properly stowed away.
Outside the door, their voices could be heard.
"I truly hope this interruption won't affect Professor Lockhart's experiments..." This was Professor McGonagall's voice.
"Professor Lockhart asked us to come here for a lesson at this time, so it shouldn't." This was the young wizards chattering amongst themselves.
Lockhart finally finished dealing with the things he didn't want others to see. Just as he was about to open the door, he realized he hadn't put on his shoes, so he hurriedly grabbed them and sat on a tree trunk, pulling them onto his feet.
Little Goldie, sensing his emotions from the side, had actually begun sensibly learning to cooperate with its master's life.
Well, but not quite *that* sensibly.
It skillfully reined in its own magical influence—which was great—but instead of helping to open the door, it raised its little paw, pointed toward the crooked peach tree trunk with a tree hole that was squeezed against the corner of the fireplace, and let out a cry, "Gugi!"
The tree hole was very quiet, as if there was nothing inside at all.
"Gugi~~?"
Immediately, a flurry of panicked information boiled up inside the tree hole. A black cloud of smoke tumbled out in a "scrambling" posture, rapidly transforming on the floor into a humanoid figure draped in tattered wizard robes.
This was a boggart—a Dark magical creature, and specifically one with experience living in wizarding households. When it didn't feel any fear, it would instinctively turn into this appearance.
As soon as it appeared, it subconsciously locked its gaze onto the wizard in the office.
"Gugi!!!" Little Goldie's voice was already somewhat angry.
The boggart trembled in fright, its body shrinking as it stared blankly at Little Goldie.
Little Goldie stood on the tree trunk with its hands on its hips, using its third little paw to vigorously point at the office door.
"..."
The boggart felt insulted!
The boggart was truly insulted!
Little Goldie leaped down from the tree and scampered in a flash along the boggart's tattered wizard robes, climbing right onto its head and bringing a paw down hard in a slap.
The boggart finally obeyed.
Bearing Little Goldie on its head, it limped toward the door—this was the walking style it liked to use in the past when scaring the owners of houses, but this sluggish appearance once again earned it another heavy smack.
Thus, it had no choice but to move with the nimble agility of a lively young man, walking quickly to the door and opening it.
"Professor Lockhart, I hope I haven't affected your experiments... Oh! Merlin's beard!" Professor McGonagall's gasp of surprise rang out.
The one opening the door looked gloomy and menacing, just like an evil dark wizard, with nothing visible inside the pitch-black depths of its large hood.
Fortunately, after an initial moment of shock, her rich experience immediately allowed her to perceive that this was a boggart.
A boggart was nothing much, but the Dark magical creature perched on top of the boggart's head was terrifying.
She subconsciously shielded the young wizards behind her and was just about to say something when she saw a large hand shove the boggart aside. Lockhart pulled the door wide open with a brilliant smile, saying, "Sorry about that, please come in, please come in."
The curious little tykes behind her only had time to catch a glimpse of a trail of black smoke rushing toward the tree hole by the fireplace, and a flash of golden light vanishing among the leaves along another tree trunk.
Hmm?
A tree trunk?
"Merlin's beard!" Professor McGonagall was completely dumbfounded as she looked at the office, which had now turned into a small grove. "Professor Lockhart, this..."
Lockhart laughed heartily, gesturing for them to enter as he spoke off the cuff: "This was specially arranged to better simulate the fairy-tale-like romantic drills we're going to do next. You know, we professors always have to run through things ourselves first to get familiar with every link and detail, making sure no accidents happen."
"Adventures in the forest—the most familiar fairy tale setting for everyone, you understand."
The truth was that he simply didn't have the ability to change the small grove created by the forest witch back to its original state.
"You truly are a responsible professor!" Looking at this grove and imagining Professor Lockhart still working hard to rehearse the upcoming lesson content while everyone else was resting over the weekend, Professor McGonagall couldn't help but be filled with emotion, her gaze toward Professor Lockhart growing more and more satisfied.
***
Regarding the fact that his office had turned into this, Lockhart actually felt a little awkward.
According to his agreement with Dumbledore, his post as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was actually a "yearly lease"—oh, no, rather, it was a one-year tenure.
This meant he was only using this office temporarily for a year, yet he had no way at all to restore the place to its original condition.
This wasn't his personal property, after all.
Fortunately, Professor McGonagall didn't mind. She seemed to have some matters to discuss, but after hesitating for a moment as she looked at the young wizards beside her, she said, "Perhaps I can wait until after your class to speak with you?"
She didn't want her personal matters to affect the children's studies.
Lockhart nodded. "Then if you could just wait a moment. Today is a training session; I only need to lecture for a little while."
He clapped his hands, drawing the attention of the curious little tykes back to himself. "Today we will continue practicing the Disarming Charm. Oh, Harry, what is that expression? Pride is not a good thing."
"Harry, Draco, don't you two think that because your Disarming Charms, defensive techniques, and counter-curses are proficient, it's enough to satisfy me. Next class, I will require both of you to sit on flying brooms and conduct a more flexible, competitive combat drill. Your current level is far from enough!"
In fact, the talent these two young wizards possessed in spellcasting had reached a degree that made Lockhart secretly envious and jealous. He couldn't help but offer more criticisms to suppress the momentum of these two children in order to maintain his authority and influence as a professor.
Cultivating two dueling masters would be the perfect achievement of his teaching career this year, and bringing it up later in any setting would be enough to elevate his own prestige.
With that, he looked toward Ron and Hermione instead. "The two of you will likely need to start learning from scratch, but don't worry about falling behind Harry and them. You are both still second-year young wizards; you have plenty of time in the future to improve yourselves."
Lockhart had his own philosophy when it came to conducting classes. Whether it was the present "Dueling Club," regular classes, or N.E.W.T. classes, he always liked to single out a few exceptional ones to cultivate first, and then let them "lead the veterans to guide the newcomers." This always made things much easier for him.
"Pair up into groups of two."
"Veterans leading newcomers makes it easier to consolidate knowledge and notice details you might have overlooked in the past."
"So, Harry, you teach Ron; Draco, you teach Hermione."
Draco looked like he was about to jump up. "Why do I have to be paired with her?!"
If it weren't for the professor's presence, the abusive slur "Mudblood" would have tumbled right out of his mouth.
Lockhart merely looked at Draco with an inscrutable expression, saying softly, "A truly shrewd Slytherin does not make enemies on all sides and bring so many foes upon themselves, Draco. You must learn to get along even with those who hold opinions opposite to yours."
Draco pressed his lips together and didn't speak. After a long moment, he finally nodded solemnly.
Hermione also looked thoroughly unhappy, but she clearly understood better how to respect the arrangements of her idol, Professor Lockhart. She clutched her wand tightly in sullen silence.
"Very good." Lockhart smiled as he looked at the young wizards. "Now it's question-and-answer time. If you have any doubts, you may bring them up. You can begin practicing after I finish guiding you."
Hermione raised her hand first, and upon receiving his consent, she excitedly pointed at the trees around the office. "Professor, how did you do this?"
This was precisely what she yearned for—magic that achieved breakthrough, unconventional transformative effects. She could feel it.
Harry quietly tugged on her sleeve, whispering a reminder, "Hermione, right now we can only ask questions about the Disarming Charm."
Hermione was startled, pulling her head back in slight embarrassment.
"It's fine, I can talk about it, but let this be an exception." Lockhart turned back to look at the surrounding trees, some of which were as thick as if they had grown for decades. Even someone like him who knew what was going on found it remarkable; it was only natural for the young wizards to be curious. He smiled and shook his head. "You will never be able to do this."
"!!!"
The young wizards were all dumbfounded, never expecting to receive such an answer.
Even Professor McGonagall, who was quietly listening from the side, hesitated over whether to chime in and say something.
Lockhart looked at the disheartened expressions of the young wizards and smiled as he explained, "Actually, the principle behind achieving this effect is very simple: the Vivification Charm from the field of alchemy, and the Acceleration and Expansion Charms from the field of domestic cultivation. That's all—they're very basic magic."
"It's just like Transfiguration; the most fundamental principles are really just those few, but truly delving deep into them requires a lifetime of immersion."
"This doesn't mean you have to spend your entire life learning it..."
Lockhart raised an eyebrow. "...rather, it means it requires your life, your thinking, your existence, and everything in your life to serve as the nourishment for magic to grow."
The Amazonian "forest witch" was a wizard who had been abandoned in infancy and raised by gray wolves, living in the forest for most of her life before later following a troll out of the forest to live in Manhattan, USA.
During her life in the big city, whenever the forest witch encountered moments requiring combat, she chose not to use the magic popular in modern wizarding society, instead retaining her original casting habits and modifying the environment through spellcasting just like this every time she fought.
She called it "returning to nature, and nature will bestow power upon her," but Lockhart preferred to describe it as "the forest witch's combat domain."
"Everyone has their own magical path to walk." He patted the thick tree trunk beside him, full of profound meaning. "Sometimes when we see wonderful magic, our hearts are always stirred, but remember: this is someone else's magic, someone else's life, someone else's soul, not yours."
"We can never become anyone else; we can only become ourselves."
Such profound reasoning was still far too early for a few clueless second-year young wizards; they wouldn't understand it.
Professor McGonagall, standing to the side with pressed lips, felt it deeply, however.
As a renowned international master of Transfiguration who so diligently nurtured and taught generation after generation of students every year—teaching Transfiguration from the first year to the seventh without interruption—just how many masters of Transfiguration had she actually cultivated?
At least none of the ones in recent years were worth boasting about.
Tracing back ten or twenty years in time, there certainly had been a batch of good seedlings; people like Potter and Sirius learned advanced transformations like Animagus quite early on during their school days. Unfortunately, due to the impact of the war, they ultimately never lived to see the day they became masters of Transfiguration.
Lockhart stroked the large tree and remained silent for a long time.
Because that recent speech didn't really apply to himself.
He had already digested a small portion of the "forest witch's" memories. Would he be able to truly digest all of the memories in the future and completely swallow up the forest witch's adventurous life? It was uncertain, but the future was promising.
If the original Lockhart was a "memory thief," then perhaps he would go a step further and become a "life thief."
He could never become a saint who remained unmoved in the face of these powerful wizards' precious memories and lives. He didn't wish at all to cross over into this magical world only to continue being a Muggle who couldn't do magic.
Without these memories, he was just a Muggle; since he had chosen to retain these memories, he had to know how to make good use of them.
Stealing other people's lives and digesting other people's adventure experiences!
"Alright, topic over. You may begin practicing."
Actual combat drills were the easiest way to observe whether students had mastered their knowledge well—whether it was Harry and Draco acting as instructors, or Hermione and Ron who were learning.
Lockhart only needed to watch from the side to thoroughly grasp the progress of each person.
After all, he understood the Disarming Charm far too well.
Across the three major domains of Defense Against the Dark Arts—facing dark wizards, facing Dark magical creatures, and facing duels—even though he couldn't cast magic in this regard, his eye for it was absolutely razor-sharp.
However, he didn't put all his energy into the young wizards today; he invited Professor McGonagall to take a seat at the desk behind several large trees to ask about the reason for her visit.
"The situation is like this." Professor McGonagall drew a letter from her wizarding robes. "A bizarre incident occurred at the Urquhart family's castle. After requesting help from the Ministry of Magic yielded no results, they wrote to ask if I could provide assistance."
She sighed. "It has already been confirmed that this is a problem caused by a Dark magical creature, but no one can solve it."
With her usual pride, she offered a rare compliment: "Professor Lockhart, you are the person with the most innovative ideas in this field that I have ever seen. Perhaps you will have a way."
The Urquhart family?
Lockhart's eyebrows twitched as he rapidly thumbed through his memories, finding the answer within the memory of a powerful wizard.
It was the family of Professor McGonagall's husband. That powerful wizard in his memories had even attended the funeral of Professor McGonagall's husband, Elphinstone Urquhart, as a close friend of the family.
This family generally hailed from Durmstrang Institute; they were pure-blood, traditional, and held enormous influence within their own country's Ministry of Magic as well as those of various European nations.
For such a powerful force to be unable to handle a matter could only mean it was extremely troublesome.
Lockhart took the letter and began reading. The writer affectionately addressed Professor McGonagall as "Aunt Minerva," first offering a heap of flattery before detailing the trouble that had occurred in the castle.
The described content could almost be called a textbook castle horror story.
Overnight, the entire castle was covered in bloodstains, all sorts of venomous snakes and spiders crawled everywhere, the castle's house-elves died mysteriously, and in the middle of the night, vague, phantom female singing could be heard.
Once the possibility of malicious cursing by someone else was ruled out and it was confirmed to be the work of a Dark magical creature, a castle like this could basically be written off as ready to be abandoned directly.
Although Dark magical creatures possessed a sort of "biological" aspect, they were essentially "phenomena," and without targeted methods, they simply couldn't be killed.
In the wizarding world, there were many such haunted places that humans had to abandon because Dark magical creatures infested or occupied them.
Coincidentally, as Lockhart searched through the memories in his mind, he actually found the answer.
And there were even two possibilities.
He handed the letter back to Professor McGonagall, pondered for a moment, and then replied, "It's likely one of two things: 'Cellar Rot' or a 'Doomed Fairy'."
Professor McGonagall was startled. When she received this letter filled with a tone of utter despair from young Urquhart, she had actually held almost no hope of solving the problem. She had simply tried it out of a faint "Professor Lockhart seems to really have the ability, so I might as well ask" sort of mindset. She hadn't expected to actually get an answer.
***
The two Dark magical creatures, "Cellar Rot" and "Doomed Fairy," were not common nowadays.
In fact, by the modern era of 1992, due to the flourishing of Muggle technology and culture, the crowding out of living resources and spaces, and the penetration and alteration of cultural influences, many magical creatures that had once been common in wizarding history had become scarce.
The most obvious change was that what used to be called "Defense Against Magical Creatures" had now become "Care of Magical Creatures," and even powerful lives like dragons had begun relying on breeding farms to continue their species.
God only knew when Defense Against Dark Magical Creatures would also turn into the Care of Dark Magical Creatures.
As for a Dark magical creature like "Cellar Rot," it was still somewhat manageable; one could still occasionally hear rumors of it in things like "cursed houses."
"Doomed Faries," however, seemed to have vanished completely over the past thirty or forty years, leaving no news at all.
"The impacts caused by these two types of Dark magical creatures look similar, but their inherent characteristics are fundamentally different."
Lockhart spoke eloquently, while an idea suddenly popped into his head—perhaps he could follow the example of Senior Newt and also compile a book titled *Where to Find Dark Magical Creatures*.
Such an idea was by no means driven by a need to earn royalties.
He was quite satisfied with the wealth accumulated by the original owner and temporarily lacked the fierce drive to earn money.
What he wanted was the enhancement of his own strength.