A ruined Hogwarts

Early the next morning, the young wizards who had breakfast in the Great Hall were all talking about Gilderoy Lockhart and the newly created position of Security Advisor, and what they had learned from the Daily Prophet early on, replacing Lockhart. Peter Pettigrew becomes the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Lockhart revealed this matter early, but before the start of school, most people did not know who the new professor was and what his identity was. This sense of mystery only increased the wizards' expectations. But it is obvious that they are now mostly disappointed.

"To be honest, I still had expectations for him. After all, he can take over Lockhart's position, so he shouldn't be a fool." Draco expressed his opinion in a slow tone, "But I found I was wrong, I shouldn't have had any expectations at all. Judging from his timid look, I suspected that he was ready to run away at any time. Maybe he is a relative of Dumbledore or something..."

Everyone followed his gaze to look at Peter Pettigrew, who was sitting at the teacher's desk. He was holding a piece of bread with both hands and gnawing quickly. His small, watery eyes were scanning around smartly, as if he was looking for dangers lurking around him at any time. And the escape route, looks like a big rat stealing food.

But almost all professors were willing to treat him kindly. Professor McGonagall, who had always been unsmiling, showed a rare smile of concern and relief in front of the other party, looking kind and cheerful. Professor Flitwick and Professor Sprout also chatted with him in a friendly manner. Even Hagrid, who was passing by the auditorium, came over and patted his shoulder with tears in his eyes, causing him to fall head over heels in front of him. On a plate with tomato sauce.

Gilderoy Lockhart was even more keen on showing a close relationship. He liked to hold each other's shoulders and show everyone a bright smile, as if he was always ready to take photos from reporters.

Compared with them, Professor Snape, who looked disgusted and disdainful, became an incompatible sight. Already dressed in black, he exudes a gloomy and low pressure. Whenever he glances at Peter Pettigrew, he will twitch the corners of his mouth in disgust, as if he has seen a cockroach that has just crawled out of the dung heap. It seems very... I want to kick the opponent over and stomp on his face hard.

Peter Pettigrew didn't dare to look at him at all. He shivered and shrank his shoulders, looking like he wanted to curl himself into a ball and roll away.

"We haven't taken his class yet, so it's hard to make subjective assumptions." Daphne always maintained a rational mind and gently rolled her hair on her temples with one hand. "Look, the other professors have very different attitudes toward Professor Peter." Okay, this is obviously not the kind of treatment a related household can get, right?"

"Except the Headmaster," Harry added, "I think Professor Snape wants to kill him. I guess there is some grudge between them."

As he said that, he looked at Peter Pettigrew's right hand that was missing his index finger from a distance, and then found that the other person was looking at him with emotion. A trace of extremely complicated emotions seemed to flash through his watery little eyes.

"No way, you don't know him? Draco, Owen, I thought you two should know his identity..." Blaise's surprised tone woke Harry up.

"Oh, I know." Owen said casually, slowly eating a piece of bread smeared with blueberry jam, "My father told me about this."

"What?" Draco raised his eyebrows, and then raised his slender chin slightly, "My father knows too many things, and I am too lazy to listen..."

"This is a living recipient of the Order of Merlin, First Class, a hero who bravely captured the Death Eaters more than ten years ago..." Blaise told everyone about that not-so-distant history in a somewhat exaggerated tone.

Finally, he added: "Of course, the fact that he did not die makes his deeds not worth mentioning. Therefore, many people are only one death away from becoming a hero..."

"So, he's quite brave..." Harry looked at Peter Pettigrew again, but couldn't connect him with bravery.

"Who knows what he has gone through in these years." Blaise shrugged. "I think he may have delusions of being persecuted. After all, the Dark Lord is long gone, and he is the only one who is still worried about being hunted down by his followers. …”

Hearing these words, Harry twisted his body uncomfortably. Only a few people knew that Voldemort was not dead yet, and even put his black hands into Hogwarts last semester. He glanced at Owen, but unfortunately Owen was concentrating on eating the bread and didn't look at him at all.

In this way, Harry somewhat understood Professor Peter's fear, because Voldemort had indeed been plotting to make a comeback and even be able to seduce new followers.

After breakfast, the group left the auditorium and went to the first class of the semester, the Transfiguration class.

They met Lockhart who was wandering around the castle halfway. After seeing Harry, Lockhart's eyes suddenly lit up. With a cheerful look on his face, he pushed aside Draco who was next to Harry, and was talking to himself along the way, completely unaware of Harry's perfunctory and repulsive expression, and the disgust on Draco's face.

Surprisingly, when everyone entered the Transfiguration classroom, Lockhart followed them. He showed what he thought was an extremely charming smile to the very surprised Professor McGonagall, and stood on the podium naturally and said: "I think it is necessary for me to check for safety hazards everywhere. You know, my task is very difficult and I cannot relax at all." …”

Professor McGonagall nodded with a straight face and started teaching as if he were a transparent person. Lockhart sat at the back of the classroom quite consciously and did not interfere with the progress of the class. He just smiled brightly at the little witches who turned to look at him from time to time.

In this class, Professor McGonagall asked them to turn a beetle into a button. While others were concentrating on practicing, Owen was already practicing the disappearing spell with the beetle, and even made the entire beetle completely disappear with ease. Then he waved his wand again and the beetle came back again.

Professor McGonagall saw Owen's movements while patrolling here, and summoned a mouse for him to continue practicing. After seeing that Owen still managed to make it disappear, she nodded with satisfaction and then gave Slytherin ten points.

The disappearing spell is a very strange spell. Theoretically, it can make anything disappear, but the more complex the object, the more difficult it becomes to cast it. Generally speaking, it is more difficult to use the disappearing spell on living objects than on inanimate objects. Of course, it is also related to the mass and volume of the object. The more complex the life forms are, the difficulty and cost of using the disappearing spell on them will rise sharply.

Therefore, the disappearing spell is rarely used in actual combat, because it is too difficult to use the disappearing spell on magical creatures, and the magic power requirements of the wizard are also very high, even if it is just to make a certain part of the enemy's body disappear, it is very difficult. easy. Even a master of transfiguration like Professor McGonagall, it is difficult to say whether she has the ability to make a person disappear.

No one can say exactly where all the disappeared things went. Perhaps they were moved to other places, or perhaps they were briefly reduced to nothingness. But there is no doubt that objects cast with a disappearing spell can reappear, which is also one of the charms of transfiguration.

Owen was interested in vanishing spells mainly because he was curious about where things disappeared. Likewise, he was interested in transmutation spells that could conjure objects out of thin air. As for fighting, he has plenty of magic spells to use.

After practicing the Disappearance Charm with the things at hand, he began to practice the Transformation Charm again, and he conjured a roll of parchment, a quill, and a shining silver knife out of thin air on his desk.

According to Gamp's basic law of transformation, food and magical items cannot be transformed out of thin air. The more complex and difficult the transformation is, and there is a certain time limit.

The Transfiguration class passed without any incident, and even the most naughty students did not dare to cause trouble in Professor McGonagall's class. But at the end of get out of class, Lockhart walked briskly onto the podium and said to the little wizards in the audience: "Of course, I know nothing dangerous will happen in Professor McGonagall's class!"

He winked mischievously at everyone again: "However, I found that many people have great difficulty in learning the art of transformation. In fact, when you master a certain trick, you will find that it is not difficult at all... If you want to be more specific If you know more about it, you can carefully read my "Walking with Ghouls" and "A Year with XZ Snowman". In these two books, I explore the tips of transformation in depth..."

Professor McGonagall's stern face became stiffer and stiffer, her nose twitched slightly, and she looked like she wanted to kick this guy out of the classroom. After Lockhart finished speaking a long series of words without realizing it, he waved to Professor McGonagall happily and walked out of the classroom door briskly.

Harry looked at Professor McGonagall with some sympathy and said, "He really likes to talk to himself, isn't he?"

"But he's handsome..." Pansy muttered quietly.

The second class was Owen's least favorite herb class. Although those unique magical plants are indeed very interesting, that does not mean that herbal medicine classes can be very interesting. At least Owen had never been keen on staying in a steaming greenhouse, nor did he think there was anything attractive about stepping on the soft soil with manure and rolling up his sleeves to serve uncooperative plants.

The most important thing is that students need to concentrate on their work in herbal medicine class. Professor Sprout does not allow students to use magic because it is easy to cause trouble. This prevents Owen from sinking into the wall-facing space to learn other knowledge, and can only do the same repetitive and boring manual labor as everyone else.

For example, in this herbal medicine class, Professor Sprout asked them to continue what the students in the previous class had been doing, put the remaining mandrake seedlings into pots. Those mandrakes that were very reluctant to move twisted their ugly roots and clung to the soil. They would also punch and kick the students, throwing the smelly mud everywhere, and even biting people's fingers. head.

The students had to wear special earmuffs to block out the deadly cries of the mandrakes. They sweated profusely and struggled with the dishonest magic plants, making their bodies covered in mud.

However, as expected, Lockhart also appeared in this herbal medicine class. He was wearing the same pair of earmuffs, holding his nose and standing far away from here, but a poisonous tentacle wrapped around his neck.

Professor Sprout quickly abandoned the young wizards who were fighting with the mandrake and rescued Lockhart from the poisonous tentacles. Fortunately, this poisonous tentacle has not yet grown its deadly fangs, otherwise Lockhart would probably have to stay in the school hospital for a long time, and might even set a record for the fastest professor to be laid off at Hogwarts.

When get out of class was about to end, Draco used all his strength to pull a mandrake out of the soil, but it fell flat on its back. The mandrake's doll-like roots rushed into his face, nearly ripping off his earbuds. His flower pot was knocked over, and all the dragon manure inside was poured on him.

Owen and Harry managed to pull the mandrake out of Draco's face and stuff it into a large flower pot. Draco muttered with a dark face, and kept talking until the end of class: "I have never encountered such an embarrassing thing in my life... I really don't know the point of setting up this kind of class, we are not here to do rough work. Damn it!"

Lockhart, who had recovered from the shock, jumped out again as expected and said loudly: "I think it is irresponsible to the students that there are so many dangerous plants here!" He turned to the students again! Professor Sprout said: "Of course, I didn't question your meaning, I just made reasonable suggestions from the perspective of student safety."

"Oh, the little accident just now was just a little joke I made for everyone. You must be scared, right? In fact, I have known for a long time that that thing has no fangs at all, just like what I wrote in the book "Breaking with the Female Ghost" Just like everyone else, you have to learn to observe the surrounding environment carefully..." Lockhart advertised with a smile, and then turned around and left gracefully under the adoring eyes of a group of little witches.

Owen looked at Lockhart's retreating back in amusement. What kind of male version of Umbridge is this?

After lunch, they had to rush to the History of Magic class. During the process, Harry was secretly photographed by his little fan in Gryffindor, Colin Creevey. After the secret photograph was discovered, Creevey jumped up and ran away like a rabbit, leaving Harry stunned. land.

In the drowsy History of Magic class, Owen did not discuss the history of magic with the ghost professor as usual. Instead, he studied the advanced theory of magic in the wall-facing space and started his first practice.

The initial attempt was to add power to the levitating spell, so that the floating objects could fly out quickly, possibly even reaching the speed of a fired bullet. Although this kind of advanced spells are recorded in advanced spell books, Owen decided to improve them himself first, and then compare the pros and cons to lay the foundation for creating his own spells in the future.

The class time passed quickly. Without Owen's questions and discussions from time to time, the little wizards could hardly resist Professor Binns' hypnosis. When class was over, Harry couldn't help but sigh: "I'm actually a little regretful that Lockhart is not in this class."

"Agreed." Draco yawned, with red marks on his face from when he slept.

In the next few days, Lockhart seemed to be everywhere in Hogwarts.

In the first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of this semester, Peter Pettigrew's teaching ability greatly disappointed the students.

When he called Harry's name, he suddenly said in a sharp voice: "Harry Potter... Harry, oh..." His watery little eyes looked at him with pity and complexity, and he murmured to himself He said: "I'm really sorry, I... alas, next time..."

He seemed hesitant to speak, as if he had many stories in his mind, which aroused Harry's strong curiosity. He whispered to Owen: "I feel like he knows me, or maybe he knows my parents."

Owen curled his lips. Although he didn't know the purpose of Peter Pettigrew coming to Hogwarts, he didn't have any good intentions towards Harry. This is fishing.

He didn't say anything. Harry was looked after by Dumbledore and Snape, so it was difficult for him to encounter any danger. It was not Owen's turn to worry about it. Speaking of which, he was curious about how Peter Pettigrew dealt with Dumbledore's possible Legilimency. Quirrell could take Voldemort with him, but what about this guy?

While Owen was thinking wildly, Peter Pettigrew finished the roll call and stood on the podium wringing his hands, looking more nervous than the little wizard who was called up to answer questions. He taught step by step according to the textbook, without any characteristics, and even spoke with some stumbling, making the students seem to have returned to the class of the previous semester. Fortunately, he didn't stutter, otherwise more young wizards would start to wonder if he was Quirrell pretending to be him.

When Peter Pettigrew finally couldn't control the classroom discipline, Lockhart enthusiastically helped him out. He emphasized to the young wizards many times that he was the recipient of the Order of Merlin, Third Class, and an honorary member of the Defense League against Dark Arts. , won the "Wizard Weekly" Most Charming Smile Award five times, and held Peter's shoulders as if he were standing on the awards podium.

In the following time, he volunteered to take out his wand and demonstrated the obstacle spell several times for everyone. In three minutes, he accidentally broke four window panes, turned the blackboard into slimy slime, hung a little wizard from the ceiling, and turned Peter Pettigrew into an afro... …

When Peter Pettigrew finished this accident-prone lesson sweating profusely, he looked at Lockhart with something wrong in his eyes. This guy is here to cause trouble...

Lockhart just waved his hand and left with an air of dignity, but the chaos he caused continued.

In Potions class, Lockhart, who shamelessly entered the classroom, was kicked out mercilessly by Professor Snape. The classroom door was slammed so hard that he almost flattened his handsome nose.

Because of this incident, Snape, who was already unpopular in other colleges, was criticized by many little witches. However, Snape was so famous that they could only feel sorry for Brother Lockhart behind his back.

During Charms class, Lockhart once again shamelessly advertised his book and told everyone he would be happy to sign autographs for them. At the same time, he also announced that he would be waiting for everyone in the office, playing the role of a psychological counselor, claiming that it was also his responsibility to protect the students' mental health.

After saying that, he turned around and left with a sparkling smile, not realizing at all that the hair on the back of his head had been secretly made bald by Professor Flitwick, making a large group of little wizards who had already had enough of him burst into laughter. .

But even so, there is still an endless stream of little witches visiting Lockhart's office for various reasons every day. Due to reasons such as panic, shortness of breath, and depression, they did not hesitate to skip classes to visit their idol, confide to him the little things in their adolescence, and finally left reluctantly with Lockhart's autograph.

It was said that Hermione and Pansy in the study group had secretly visited his office and were coaxed into willingly buying a complete set of his works, something Draco laughed at for a long time.

Fortunately, Lockhart, who wandered around the castle every day, finally succeeded in attracting Peeves' attention and became Peeves' new target.

It's really gratifying.