Clearly, the craftsman-wizard who manufactured it utilized this characteristic to achieve portability.
Unfortunately, nobody knew the incantation to control its size, rendering it useless.
"Fortunately, this works too." Mr. Borgin retrieved a small cloth bag from beneath the counter—made of coarse burlap, with workmanship that did not look particularly good.
With one hand he held the bag, and with the other he laboriously stuffed the crystal Horned Serpent skull inside. The large magical artifact was thus easily crammed into the palm-sized pouch.
"A bag enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm..." Lockhart was tempted. Such items were not common; under the instruction of the International Confederation of Wizards, the Ministry of Magic strictly limited the use of this magic, and Aurors cracked down on it severely, making it extremely difficult to find such items even on the black market.
Yet he did not show it, merely glancing at the bag's appearance with a trace of disdain as he curled his lip. "Mr. Borgin, do you really think these are comparable?"
Mr. Borgin threw the bag onto the table and spread his hands. "I'd say they're about the same."
Hmph!
Lockhart couldn't be bothered to argue with him, simply asking, "How much?"
Mr. Borgin's eyes narrowed into the greasy, crafty smile typical of a swindler as he rubbed his hands together like a fly. "The price of those items you entrusted me to dispose of last time balances out with this. We're square."
Ha!
Lockhart hadn't expected to still have a batch of goods in Borgin's hands. He quickly searched his memories for the information, and his expression instantly darkened. "Balances out? Mr. Borgin, that won't do!"
Damn it!
You crafty swindler!
At this moment, he cast aside any thought of concealing his strength. He slammed his hands down hard on the counter, leaning over it to glare down at the old fellow, his eyes filled with a dangerous gleam.
Mr. Borgin was clearly intimidated by his aura. Having no idea that the man opposite him was only putting up a front, and remembering Lockhart as a ruthless figure who could always manage to acquire top-quality stolen goods, he instinctively shrank his neck, swallowed hard, and offered a weak-spirited explanation.
"An ordinary Pensieve would certainly be cheaper, but this is a Pensieve of the highest craftsmanship—not the kind made of mud or stone. The advanced alchemy required to prepare the ossified crystal of a Horned Serpent skull alone is exceedingly rare, and it used extremely costly..."
Lockhart listened to him finish his rambling with a cold sneer, then said flatly, "It's second-hand!"
"Hey, you can use it as brand new, it doesn't affect its function at all!" Mr. Borgin grew anxious.
"The Horned Serpent skull craftsmanship is indeed precious, but it has lost the effect that the Horned Serpent skull provides. Without the controlling incantation, it's completely meaningless!" Lockhart's voice was full of disdain.
Someone who finds fault with the merchandise is the true buyer; those who aren't buying simply turn around and walk away. Mr. Borgin knew this. He pressed both hands against the counter, stood on tiptoe, craned his neck, and widened his aged eyes with all his might. "You need to know how to recognize quality!"
Recognize quality?
Lockhart certainly knew quality. His gaze swept quickly around the shop, where he could name many of the items on display.
The shriveled hand inside the glass case was known as the Hand of Glory. Made from the hand of a greedy gambler, if a candle was placed inside it, only the holder of the Hand of Glory could see the light.
The ferocious wooden mask hanging on the wall had no name, generally used by priests of African wizarding tribes. It possessed an evil, twisting power that caused others to see the mask with fear and psychological distortion.
The large black cabinet was none other than the Vanishing Cabinet paired with the other one at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry—the very one Draco Malfoy would repair in the original story.
The opal necklace carried a malicious curse; cursed luxurious ornaments naturally leaned toward a fairy-tale aesthetic. The reason Mr. Borgin placed this item so solemnly in the case was primarily because it had already killed nineteen Muggles, making it an object backed by a mysterious legend.
There were too many.
Lockhart could identify a story for many of the items in Borgin and Burkes.
He quickly recalled the memories of the original Lockhart and his own knowledge of the original story. After a moment of thought, he snatched a glass jar from a shelf, inside of which a single eyeball rolled around ceaselessly.
He placed it beside the cloth bag. "Throw this in too, and we're square!"
Mr. Borgin cried out, "That won't do!"
"I know you're still making a profit, you damned greedy swindler!" Lockhart retorted. "I risked my life to acquire that batch of goods, you need to remember that!"
"You damned writer are greedier than I am!" Mr. Borgin slammed the table in anger. "Do you know how precious this magical eye is? Mad-Eye Moody has one just like it, and it's thanks to that he has such a glorious combat record!"
"Oh, really?"
Lockhart crossed his arms, looking down at him with a cold sneer. "I expect Moody knows where his magical eye came from, but I certainly don't know the origin of this eyeball!"
"It's said that magical eyes like this might come in a pair. I wouldn't know if the other eyeball was damaged and lost, or if it's held by someone with ulterior motives, ready to curse the current owner of this eye at any moment."
Mr. Borgin stared at him with a fake, sinister, unblinking smile. "Since you know that, you still dare to take it?"
The smile vanished from his face almost immediately.
Lockhart fished the small golden-haired creature out of his robes by the scruff of its neck. Even though it kept its promise and refrained from attacking anyone, the sight of it still made human beings feel an irrepressible dread welling up from the depths of their souls.
Mr. Borgin screamed in terror. "Three-Handed? Get this monster away, damn it, take it away!"
Lockhart chuckled. "Of course I dare to take it. This magical eye is a toy for it."
The small golden-haired creature stared with glowing eyes at the eyeball inside the glass jar, crying out to him in pleading chirps.
"Look, it loves it." Lockhart arched an eyebrow at Mr. Borgin.
"I'm going to take a total loss." Mr. Borgin instinctively moved away from the powerful dark magical creature, pressing his back flat against a mummy's sarcophagus, though this brought him no sense of safety whatsoever.
He hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded, waving his hand as if shooing away a fly in utter annoyance. "Take it, take it! If you ever bring this monster here again, you are not setting foot in my shop!"
The two parties concluded a pleasant transaction.
The reason Lockhart revealed the small golden-haired creature was naturally to let Mr. Borgin know that the magical eye would be in the beast's possession. Ha! If anyone dared to use a potential matching eyeball to cast a curse, they needn't blame him when the backlash hit.
Of course, this wasn't merely about getting a toy for the small golden-haired creature.
Lockhart clearly remembered what would happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year—the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets would emerge!
This magical eye would grant him the ability to look a Basilisk straight in the eye.
Danger was coming, so one naturally had to prepare beforehand.
017: Ravenclaw's Dregs
Having secured the Pensieve, Lockhart continued walking toward the darkest corner of Knockturn Alley. He was going to meet a dangerous individual.
——The wizarding goods dealer, Mundungus Fletcher.
This dangerous individual was so unlike Mr. Borgin; he had no bottom line, practically akin to a rat in a dark, stinking sewer.
While Mr. Borgin still maintained some pride as part of a "Sacred Twenty-Eight" pure-blood family and wished to preserve his influence among dark wizards, preventing him from going too far, Mundungus—a dregs lingering at the bottom rung—truly stopped at nothing.
Dark wizards even circulated an afternoon tea anecdote: someone bought stolen goods from Mundungus, only to find during the transaction that the items on their own person had been smoothly stolen by Mundungus and sold to someone else.
As the saying goes, "Dragons have dragon paths, rats have rat tracks, and snakes have snake tunnels." Mundungus had his own survival wisdom.
He was a well-informed figure mingling at the bottom of the wizarding world, and a handler of many high-end dark artifacts.
For instance, the Draught of Peace—er, the Felix Felicis that Lockhart couldn't buy from Mr. Borgin—was something this fellow could manage to procure.
Brewing Felix Felicis wasn't actually difficult; although the process was complex and required half a year to mature, any apothecary who thoroughly mastered the fundamentals of potion-making could brew it.
The sole requirement for successfully concocting this liquid luck was that the brewer themselves needed to be a lucky person.
Putting aside how elusive luck worked, simply managing to brew this potion for half a year without a single accident was a very lucky thing in itself.
Thus, Felix Felicis was hard to come by and very expensive.
Stared at along the way by various ill-intentioned, unblinking gazes and eerie, mocking smiles, Lockhart finally arrived at Mundungus's temporary lodging.
Climbing a narrow staircase littered with garbage and stinking detritus, he pushed open a creaking small wooden door. The tall Lockhart had to duck his head just to pass through the low doorway.
Clatter~~~
Stepping on an empty wine bottle on the floor almost sent Lockhart sprawling face-first. He staggered a few steps and steadied himself against an iron cage, inside of which, atop a pile of miscellaneous clutter, a pair of large purple eyes suddenly snapped open.
"!!!"
Lockhart blinked, looking closer to discover a baby dragon bound by iron chains and muzzled with an iron muzzle inside the cage.
A Hebridean Black, seemingly an underage specimen.
At that moment, it was trembling with fear at the sight of the small golden-haired creature, which had poked its head out of Lockhart's pocket and was excitedly staring at the dragon's purple eyes.
"Gilderoy Lockhart~~~" A voice dragged out lazily, hoarse from a hangover and full of mockery. "My old schoolmate, you've finally come."
Lockhart looked toward the direction of the voice. Slumped in a dilapidated, multi-cracked single armchair in the corner was a scruffy, short, stout man. Seeing Lockhart look over, the man raised the bottle in his hand in a toast and took a hearty gulp on his own.
"I've disguised myself like this, and you still recognized me?"
Lockhart cursed the rat-eyed man's sharp sight inwardly, removed his mask, and lowered his cloak hood as a sign of respect, revealing his standard, perfect smile. "Hey, long time no see, Mundungus Fletcher."
Mundungus stood up, rubbed his somewhat messy hair, pulled a box of cigars from the pocket of his filthy pajamas, drew one out, and offered it to Lockhart. "Want one?"
Lockhart shook his head with a chuckle. "I've no desire to smoke a cigar, collapse on the ground, and wake up lying naked in the Knockturn Alley sewers."
"Oh, you dregs have no right to lecture me; at least I only steal money and valuables." Mundungus's voice was full of banter.
Lockhart's eyes narrowed, realizing this fellow might have sensed something, though he simply pretended not to understand. Watching Mundungus instinctively massage his lower back while searching for a lighter, Lockhart chuckled, "I heard you got beaten up by Moody again?"
Mundungus let out a cold snort, clamped the cigar in his teeth, struck a match, and roasted the end, puffing for a good while before it finally caught. He took a heavy drag of the smoke, then started coughing violently.
"Top-grade dragon-sleep weed cigars from the American Wizarding Cigar Association sure pack a punch!"
He praised it, then muttered curses with a sour expression. "Mad-Eye Moody! That bastard has never had a good word to say about me!"
Lockhart glanced around the dim room, finding not a single clean spot to sit, so he crossed his arms and leaned against the cage holding the dragon. "I heard you were peddling contraband at the school reunion again, which is why you earned Moody's righteous fist."
Mundungus looked extremely displeased. "That bloody Gryffindor has no business showing up at our Hibiscus Ravenclaw alumni reunion!"
"Oh, come off it. Without Moody, our Hibiscus Ravenclaw alumni reunion would have fallen apart long ago."
Lockhart looked indifferently at the casually piled items nearby. These looked as though they had been hauled straight out of some grand mansion—exquisite enamel craft plates and matching artistic cabinets; goodness knows where they were stolen from.
Mundungus didn't want to dwell too much on the subject of Moody. He told Lockhart to wait a moment and began rummaging through the messy pile of goods.
In truth, the relationship between Mundungus the sewer rat and the Auror heavy-hitter Moody extended far beyond the Hibiscus Ravenclaw alumni reunion; both men were also among the original members of Dumbledore's Order of the Phoenix.
Yes!
Mundungus was a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and fiercely loyal to Dumbledore at that.
Yet he was loyal only to Dumbledore. In the original story, when his Order comrade Sirius Black passed away, Mundungus had zero bottom lines and casually looted every valuable thing from Sirius's house—including the locket, one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, which Sirius's younger brother Regulus had traded his life for.
Lockhart suspected that the reason Dumbledore in the original story realized he was a memory thief was likely due to information provided by this sharp-eyed Mundungus.
Under the dim light, Lockhart's gaze also turned somewhat murky. He reached his hand into his wizarding robe pocket to stroke the small golden-haired creature's head while staring fixedly at Mundungus's back.
"If you're thinking of having a go at the back of my head, I advise you to wait until I'm drunk." Mundungus turned back around, a cigar clamped in his mouth, swaying as he walked over and shoved a small glass vial into Lockhart's hand.
Lockhart rolled his eyes. "You always assume people are up to no good. I'm a man who lives in the light, I don't do things like that!"
"Right, right, right." Mundungus blew out a cloud of smoke, his sharp eyes filled with odd amusement through the dense haze. "You're a professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry now, after all. I wouldn't even be surprised if you became a high-ranking Ministry official tomorrow."
Lockhart ignored his cryptic remarks and carefully examined the Felix Felicis in his hand.
Felix Felicis was generally contained in a thumb-sized teardrop-shaped glass vial—this wasn't merely a matter of packaging, but rather because such a unique shape better allowed one to observe the state of the potion.
He raised the Felix Felicis to catch the dim yellow light hanging from the ceiling, watched the swirling, brilliantly luminous potion inside the vial, and tapped the bottle with his wand to feel the magical resonance extending through it, then nodded.
"Is everything all right?" Mundungus stared at him unblinkingly with the cigar clamped in his teeth. "This cost me a pretty penny to get!"
"Oh, please." Lockhart scoffed. "Goodness knows which 'stock shipment' you casually swiped this from during your thievery. This stuff is expensive by nature, don't expect to add a markup."
Felix Felicis had a customary 'market price'; the demand for this potion among the dark wizard community was by no means small.
Especially those dark wizards who lacked a formal academic background or hadn't mastered their craft properly during their school years; whenever they wanted to brew important potions or manufacture dark magical artifacts, they liked to imbibe a little of this.
With enough transactions, an unwritten price had naturally formed.
Lockhart pulled out a bulging pouch of Galleons and tossed it over. "Count it."
Mundungus weighed it in his hand and shoved it straight into his pajama pocket. "The count is correct."
On the principle of already being here, Lockhart simply decided to place another order with Mundungus. "Keep an eye out for dark magical creatures for me."
"Oh! No way!" Mundungus choked in fright, coughing for a long time before his brow knitted deeply. "I could find a way to get you Minister of Magic Fudge's underpants, but dark magical creatures? Mate, I don't want to touch those terrifying things!"
Dark magical creatures were less 'creatures' and more 'phenomena'.
Phenomena were not living beings; they were undying and indestructible, and without specialized techniques, even the most powerful wizard couldn't leverage any advantage against them.
Common dark magical creatures were one thing—like Boggarts, the mischievous poltergeist 'Peeves' in Hogwarts Castle, or the Azkaban prison guards, the Dementors.
Yet the moment one ventured even slightly deeper into that field, the things encountered were terrifying in the extreme.
In truth, if the academic establishment hadn't included Boggarts in the mandatory curriculum, the wizarding world would likely be entirely helpless when facing such horrific entities.
"Information, I want information on dark magical creatures. I don't expect you to bring me an actual dark magical creature." Lockhart curled his lip at the man's reaction.
"Oh, information. That's fine, that's right in my professional wheelhouse." Mundungus let out a breath of relief, complaining, "You've got a cushy life as a best-selling author and a distinguished professor sitting in a bright, spacious office, yet you go poking around in these horrifying things—you're just asking for trouble."
"Is there any chance..."
Lockhart shrugged. "That my field of writing and teaching happens to be dark magical creatures? Mundungus, read a book for once! You're a Ravenclaw alumnus, after all."
Mundungus chuckled. "Ravenclaw? Ravenclaw breeds dregs, my old mate."
Though it wasn't a very nice thing to say, it had almost become a common consensus that Ravenclaw produced all sorts of eccentrics who veered off the beaten path in their respective fields—much like Slytherin producing dark wizards and schemers, and Gryffindor producing Aurors and reckless brutes, full of stereotypes.
018: Dangerous Experiments
With everything prepared, Lockhart returned to his office at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though the expression on his face grew increasingly grave.
Magical experiments were forever synonymous with danger, fraught with countless unknown risks.
So many people had died during magical experiments; the reason the eccentric young girl Luna in the original story could see Thestrals was because her mother had blown herself up during a spell experiment when Luna was nine years old.
Such cases were simply too numerous to count.
Even the simplest basic potion brewing—truth be told, without Professor Snape keeping a tight, watchful eye, there was no telling how many accidents would occur.
Dark wizards and adult wizards out of school didn't have the luxury of such a Potions Master watching over them; every year, news reports of people dying or being maimed were relegated to the corner columns simply because they were far too common.
Take the most commonly used potion ingredient, 'asphodel root'; during daily cultivation and planting, its roots were extremely susceptible to a disease called 'Lydotschek's fungus'.
Imagine the disaster that would be caused if asphodel root with fungus possessing unique magical properties inside its tissues were tossed into a cauldron—such an event was completely impossible to happen at Hogwarts.
Snape wouldn't even need to intervene; the school governors, who controlled the procurement and purchasing channels, would long since have arranged for specialized herbologists to weed out tainted batches, seeing as their own children attended this very school.
Therefore, one could never be too cautious when conducting magical experiments.
The Horned Serpent skull crystal Pensieve, the Felix Felicis, the newly acquired wand—Lockhart checked every single one of these three items over and over again.
Especially the wand. He attempted to cast spells; unfortunately, aside from the Memory Modification Charm succeeding, even the simplest Levitation Charm could only manage to make a piece of paper on the table twitch slightly.