Still, it was a good start; taming a Dark magic creature was no easy feat.
Lockhart could have simply kept it in a jar. Dark magic creatures were not creatures in the ordinary sense. They had no need for eating, drinking, excretion, birth, aging, sickness, or death, nor did they possess the ability to reproduce. Academically, they were known as "non-beings" or "paranormal non-human phenomena."
Yet he was just as lonely. He, too, had far too many things he could not tell anyone, and dared not tell anyone. Raising a monster as a pet seemed like a fine choice.
"From now on, I'll call you Little Goldie."
Lockhart chuckled as he gave his new pet a name.
But the smile faded from his face almost immediately.
When he sat down at his desk, ready to properly dive into work and take this year's teaching duties seriously, his gaze suddenly froze.
"What is this absolute madness?!"
He couldn't help letting out a shriek, causing Little Goldie to turn its head toward him in confusion.
Lockhart was so deeply shocked that his entire mind went blank, his pupils dilating wildly!
Clutching an apple, Little Goldie scrambled using all four paws up the chair leg and onto Lockhart's shoulder, lowering its little head to peer at the thin sheet of paper in his hands, wondering why this new master was suddenly overcome with such a dense wave of terror.
Even it had no way of accomplishing that.
Yet this slip of paper had done it.
It looked closely, but couldn't make out the words.
The content on the page was the Defense Against the Dark Arts class schedule. That in itself wasn't the issue; the crux of the matter was that Lockhart had never imagined the sheer absurdity of having only one Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for all seven years and four houses of the school.
And unlike Potions or Transfiguration, where two houses were taught simultaneously, Defense Against the Dark Arts classes were held separately for every single house!
First year was fine—only one class per house, making four classes across all four houses.
Second through fourth years jumped to two classes each, meaning eight classes across the four houses.
Fifth year consisted of two combined double-periods, which still added up to eight classes.
Sixth and seventh years finally combined all four houses into joint double-periods.
That meant teaching a staggering forty classes a week!
The entire schedule was crammed full, with not a single shred of free time.
Yet that wasn't even the half of it. There was also the single most crucial N.E.W.T. class: after the Ordinary Wizarding Levels in the fifth year, the professor had to select suitable students to continue teaching in preparation for the ultimate wizarding exams.
This part of the curriculum had no fixed schedule; it required the professor to guide the students week in and week out, effectively acting as an apprenticeship.
"Hiss~~~"
Lockhart drew in a sharp breath, feeling as though his soul had nearly left his body.
A sudden, deep wave of respect welled up in him for senior brother Snape. If he remembered correctly, Snape had moonlighted as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor for a period of time in the original books.
Moonlighted!
Are you kidding me? How on earth did he pull that off?
Between his primary responsibility of teaching Potions, his part-time stint teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, his duties as Head of Slytherin House, nightly patrols around the school, his frantic crusade to target Harry Potter, and various administrative school matters like refereeing Quidditch matches...
And of course, the utterly absurd, back-breaking workload of preparing lessons and grading papers...
Could senior brother Snape have been too busy to wash his hair all this time?
No, no, no!
Lockhart discovered with mounting horror that senior brother Snape wasn't even moonlighted right now. At present, given this teaching load combined with his own memories of student life, the two busiest professors at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry were likely to be none other than himself and Professor Binns!
Professor Binns was a ghost, so naturally he could go without eating, drinking, or sleeping—but Lockhart certainly couldn't.
If he kept this up for a single year, he was afraid he'd end up becoming the second Professor Binns!
With a workload like this, he didn't even need Voldemort's curse!
Who on earth could possibly do this?!
"Professor Dumbledore!"
"Professor Dumbledore!!!"
Clutching the schedule tightly, Lockhart didn't hesitate for a single second as he dashed toward the old headmaster's office. He couldn't wait another moment.
Since he didn't know the password to the headmaster's office, he could only stand at the entrance and shout at the top of his lungs.
In truth, he knew he ought to be looking for Professor McGonagall; she was very likely the one who had arranged this schedule, and Dumbledore probably hadn't managed the details himself.
Still, disturbing a lady in the middle of the night wasn't entirely appropriate.
After shouting for quite a while, the giant stone gargoyle at the entrance finally folded its wings. Lockhart hurried across the automatically rotating spiral staircase behind the door and stepped up into the office.
Dumbledore was sitting at his desk, wearing a pink wizard's robes inlaid with numerous glittering silver moons and stars. Before him sat a smoking cup of tea and a massive pile of documents.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up. A flash of light glinted across his crescent-shaped spectacles, his eyes narrowing. "Running around the school with a Dark magic creature like that isn't a very good idea, Professor Lockhart."
Lockhart froze for a second before snapping back to reality. He hurriedly snatched Little Goldie off his shoulder and shoved it straight into his wizard's robes pocket.
Treating such a powerful Dark magic creature with such casual roughness made Dumbledore's eyebrows twitch, a flicker of unfamiliar surprise crossing his face.
"A late-night visit—is there something I can help you with?"
Lockhart opened his mouth. Looking at the majestic Dumbledore, he suddenly didn't know how to begin.
What could he say? Complain that the workload was too heavy?
This was a shocking revelation to him, but to Dumbledore—who had served as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts since his youth—it was probably just routine.
"It's like this..."
Lockhart's reflexes were astonishingly quick. In the brief span of walking from the doorway to the desk, a brilliant idea had already formed in his head.
"Regarding the teaching, I have a wonderful new concept in mind. I do hope I'm not interrupting, and I apologize for being so excited that I lost track of the time."
Dumbledore gestured with an inviting wave toward the empty chair on the other side of his desk, took off his spectacles, and leaned back in his seat with a weary sigh. "Do go on."
Anyway, the Defense class was already a complete mess.
"Fairytales?"
Dumbledore fell into deep thought. His life experience was so vast that he could effortlessly match countless real-world cases to the fairytale theories Lockhart was describing.
"Yes, magic is the ultimate romance of a fairytale," Lockhart repeated. "For a wizard like me who grew up in Muggle society, stepping into the school brings such profound feelings about this. Professor Dumbledore, you probably can't easily fathom the wondrous experience of walking right into a fairytale world."
"That kind of experience easily makes me obsessed with magic, filling my mind with boundless imaginations. It is precisely what brings even more possibilities of variation to my spellcasting."
"You can seek confirmation from any wizards who stepped into magical society from the Muggle world."
"Of course, I suppose I understand this theory best of all."
Perhaps that statement wasn't entirely lacking in modesty. From the moment young Lockhart first stepped into Hogwarts until he entered magical society, although there were various hardships to overcome, things had mostly gone smoothly for him. He had effortlessly attained a social status that many wizards born into deeply rooted pure-blood families could never achieve.
Take senior brother Snape, for instance. He, too, had spent his childhood in Muggle society, but entering the magical world probably hadn't brought him any sense of romance.
Little Goldie poked its head curiously out of the edge of the wizard's robes pocket, revealing half of its golden, fluffy head to peer at Dumbledore opposite them. This was the second wizard it had ever seen in its life who showed no fear of its own innate abilities.
Then it looked toward the stand on the desk, where a fiery red bird was glaring at it menacingly, scaring it into shrinking back into the pocket.
Lockhart plucked a grape from the desk, slipped it into the pocket, and patted the creature's head to signal it to stay quiet. Only then did he turn his gaze back to Dumbledore with a face full of anticipation.
"What do you plan to do?" Dumbledore laced his fingers together on the desk, his gaze full of scrutiny.
"I know I shouldn't rashly alter the teaching style and rhythm of Hogwarts, so I intend to weave fairytale-style drills directly into the curriculum." Lockhart's approach was extremely cautious, and he watched the old headmaster anxiously.
"However, having only one house of students per class is far too little to complete such drills. I urgently hope to let every young wizard participate—at the very least, a single lesson should involve all four houses of a given year together."
"Believe me, while I understand to a certain extent why the school is divided into houses, I must say that the fairytale-style drills are precisely where students from houses of different styles should participate together."
"The grand villain or ambitious plotter can be a Slytherin, the wise scholar a Ravenclaw, the brave hero a Gryffindor, and the steadfast, silently dedicated worker a Hufflepuff."
"Of course, sometimes trying to have them play roles of different styles, or even swapping roles entirely, might make it easier to broaden their horizons."
"What do you think?"
Genius!
Teaching all four houses at once would instantly slash the class count down to a quarter, and the lesson preparation workload would drop by a quarter as well!
Dumbledore didn't answer immediately, falling instead into silent thought. After a moment, he glanced up at the portraits of the headmasters and headmistresses on the wall. "Would anyone be so kind as to fetch Professor McGonagall for me?"
There's hope!
Lockhart's eyes lit up, and he waited eagerly alongside Dumbledore for Professor McGonagall's arrival.
Professor McGonagall arrived faster than expected. With the busy rush at the start of term, she wasn't resting at this hour; she was busy lecturing the prefects and wasn't all that far from Headmaster Dumbledore's office.
To her, Lockhart's suggestion wasn't merely a change in teaching methodology—it involved rearranging the class schedules for the teachers and students across the entire magical school. Goodness knew how much time she would have to spend fussing over this to get it properly sorted.
Yet Professor McGonagall, who seemed rigid and bound by rules, proved far more flexible than Lockhart had imagined. After pondering it for just a moment, she agreed with the idea.
"I'm not certain whether Professor Lockhart's viewpoint is correct, but I must say, Professor Dumbledore, our past educational results in Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts have hardly satisfied me. I look forward to the possibilities that the well-traveled Lockhart brings."
Which meant: the Defense class was already this rotten anyway, so why not let Lockhart give it a try?
This...
Lockhart looked at Professor McGonagall, who was gazing at him with hopeful expectations, and suddenly felt a touch of emotion.
The feeling of being trusted was wonderful.
Perhaps this was Professor McGonagall's personal charm—she was always willing to give those she recognized a greater possibility to showcase their own abilities.
Much like how she had made an exception for first-year Harry Potter to participate in the Quidditch match, which was so crucial for the house standings, Harry's feelings back then must have been much like his own right now.
Moved, yet burdened with pressure.
Fortunately, the enhancement of abilities brought by the fairytale-like atmosphere wasn't something Lockhart had simply made up; it was the very reason the original owner's strength had grown so rapidly.
Lockhart didn't mind making this secret public.
The original owner had thought so too.
It was just that the original owner had wanted to maximize the value of this secret, which was why he hadn't written it down in his books.
He had planned to participate in "Harry's Heroic Fairytale" to extract maximum value, eventually writing a book based on real-life case studies to reap the greatest harvest.
Self-enhancement of strength, the reputation of an educational master, the profits from publishing books, an improved relationship with Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the gratitude of countless benefiting students, and future connections.
Reviewing the memories of the original book, Lockhart saw that this was precisely what he had been doing. During his classes, he had often made students come up to the stage to act out the characters from his combat adventure stories.
The trouble was that he had lost the students' trust far too early, and his clumsy attempts failed to create a proper immersive atmosphere for them to sink into those adventurous fairytale roles, making the results utterly disastrous.
So much so that in the original book, Harry and Ron frantically complained about such foolish antics, leaving even his little fangirl Hermione with no way to defend him.
Now, could he pull this off successfully?
Looking at the expectant Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, Lockhart put on his standard, flawless smile, stood up, and said solemnly, "Just you wait and see—no one understands magic better than I do!"
He would fulfill the regrets of the original owner, finish what the original owner left undone, and do it to absolute perfection!
After that, he would completely devour, absorb, and digest all of the original owner's memories.
By then, at the very least, he would possess the original owner's strength.
Top-tier Memory Modification Charms, along with usable Apparition, Scouring Charms, Unlocking Charms, simple Healing Charms, and all the other skills the original owner had honed through countless adventures.
...
The next day.
The first class of the term was an exceptionally unique experience for every young student, because Professor Lockhart, under the witness of Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall, was going to experimentally host a massive joint lecture for all the young wizards.
All seven years attending the same class.
And somehow, Professor McGonagall had actually managed to arrange this lively, chaotic session. Nearly all the professors, affected by the ripple effects of the schedule changes, simply drifted over to audit the class, eager to see what kind of nonsense Lockhart could possibly spin.
"He really loves showing off!" Ron muttered in the corner as he followed everyone into the Great Hall—after all, there was no other place in the school capable of holding so many students for a single class simultaneously.
"Ron!" Hermione snapped, displeased. "I don't think you should talk that way about a professor who wants to teach you more valuable knowledge!"
"Oh, really?" Ron chuckled. "When we were talking smack about Snape earlier, I didn't see you getting mad."
Hermione was practically fuming, turning her head away to signal that she never wanted to speak to him again.
Soon, the Great Hall quieted down under the organization of the house prefects.
Our showoff Professor Lockhart, dressed in pure gold, luxurious wizard's robes, walked briskly up onto the stage with light steps. He had just been inquiring about the previous teaching progress from the upper-year students and, to put everyone through a little test, had called upon a few students to cast the *Amplifying Charm* on him.
Plan executed!
"Students..."
His voice carried into every corner of the Great Hall. Finding it a bit too loud, he quickly lowered his pitch, making his tone steadier, and casually started off by telling a few entertaining stories about Defense Against the Dark Arts to warm everyone up.
Only then did he smile as he looked out at all the students, as well as Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Snape, who were auditing from the corner...
Well, practically the entire school was here.
He wasn't stage-frightened in the least; his expression was practically glowing with excitement.
Because he knew that establishing the stereotype of "this is a master of magic" in everyone's minds started right with today's class.
This was what you called starting off with a bang.
"Now, let's move on to our main topic today."
"What I want to discuss with you all today is—the true meaning of magic!"
Look, nothing elevates your prestige quite like a topic like that.
010 Lockhart's First Class
"I believe many young wizards who are just beginning to study magic discover a certain secret: if you roar louder, the magic effect turns out better."
Saying this, Lockhart swept his gaze across the room, grinning when he saw several children who excelled in the field of spellcraft nodding in agreement.
"Of course, once you reach the upper years, as your spellcasting experience grows, you'll discover that the true meaning of magic is actually a steadfast will."
Murmurs began to rise from the audience, with some young wizards whispering to those beside them about how they really did shout out loud and how well it worked.
Take Harry Potter, for instance. It was as if he had received a sudden epiphany; he turned to Ron to explain that he really did shout quite loudly when casting spells, meaning he had been right all along.
Over in the neighboring Slytherin table, Draco Malfoy sneered and turned his head, just about to mock the foolishness of shouting to cast spells when he abruptly caught sight of Hermione Granger gazing at Professor Lockhart on stage with a starry-eyed expression.
Oh.
Old man reading subway phone.jpg
He had seen plenty of students infatuated with Lockhart lately, and it made him feel utterly sick.
Fortunately, the chatter didn't last long before the house prefects stepped in to maintain order—they were taking the glorious task entrusted to them by Professor Lockhart very seriously indeed.
"I know..."
Lockhart strolled leisurely across the stage, speaking eloquently. "Some students might disagree with this perspective."
"They might feel that the true meaning of magic isn't a steadfast will, but rather a rich imagination, or perhaps the ability to construct mental imagery."
He waved his wand—which to him was no different than a fire poker—making the most standard basic Transfiguration motions. His handsome posture instantly drew gasps of admiration from some of the younger wizards.
The prefects had to get busy maintaining order all over again.
Lockhart simply chuckled, nodding at the prefects who were taking credit for their work, before continuing his lecture.
"Many wizards discover that when we have a good expectation of the outcome after casting a spell—preferably a clear image we can picture in our minds—our spellcasting becomes wonderfully effortless."
"For instance, the Mending Charm, *Reparo*..."
"For instance, Transfiguration and its corresponding reversing counter-spell..."
Lockhart listed numerous applications in this regard. With every example he gave, he struck a pose and executed the most standard posture—spellcasting movements that even masters of Transfiguration like Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall couldn't find a single flaw in.
In no time at all, he had swiftly summarized a full seven points, each backed by detailed demonstrations.
"Steadfast will, wonderful imagination, intense emotion..." He paced slowly across the stage, his golden robes rippling and reflecting the lights of the Great Hall, making him look utterly radiant.
He asked, "Yet even when we summarize so many secrets to casting magic, we find that none of them can be applied to every single magical domain. So, what on earth is the true meaning of magic?"
His piercing gaze swept toward every single student, even lingering on the professors in the corner, and when he saw that they too were lost in thought, his eyebrows arched upward.
Next, he randomly picked a few outstanding students to try and answer the question.
Naturally, being the schemer that he was, he picked students who were exceptional, eager to show off, and dedicated fans of his.