Chapter 48: You have to let me vent!
Bang~
Inside Hagrid's hut, the middle-aged wizard was roughly thrown to the ground by the young wizards.
His expression remained sinister, and he glared resentfully at the proud and triumphant young wizards, his teeth grinding in hatred!
Did you defeat me?
Did you capture me?
What are you so smug about!
Huh?
I'm asking you!
Look in my eyes!
George Weasley kicked him, looking at him angrily. "Killing Curse! Cruciatus Curse! You evil dark wizard, prepare to spend the rest of your life in Azkaban!"
The middle-aged wizard just sneered at him.
George was furious. He had almost lost his brother forever just now and wished he could kill the man right then and there.
"George!" Lockhart called out to him. "You and Fred go look after the others. Heal those you can with counter-curses, and arrange for everyone to take the others to Madam Pomfrey."
He had been watching the whole time. Apart from Draco Malfoy, who had been hit with the Cruciatus Curse at the beginning, the other young wizards weren't in serious trouble.
But it was clearly inappropriate for these young wizards to be crowded here in a chaotic mess.
Lockhart then looked at Cedric.
The handsome young man looked somewhat remorseful. He had clearly realized the professor's disappointment in his earlier performance and looked quite dejected.
"Cedric, could you please go and fetch Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall for me? They need to know about this as soon as possible."
Cedric quickly straightened up.
"And also..." Lockhart looked at him with a smile. "Your performance just now was good. Your decisiveness in leading everyone to charge the Slytherin team, and your method of directing the students to cast the Shield Charm together during the battle, were both excellent."
Cedric instantly became excited, his eyes shining, with a slight tremor in his voice. "Professor, I... I..."
Professor Lockhart simply nodded at him with a smile.
Frankly, it was already very good.
Children needed encouragement.
"Go on, get Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall over here as quickly as possible."
Soon, the young wizards crowded into Hagrid's hut had all left. Lockhart patted Fang's head, asking him to help watch the door.
This was the affinity with animals brought about by the 'Forest Darling' state of the Forest Witch, although it required some help from the wand to do it well.
Having done this, Lockhart finally looked at the dark wizard.
"You still haven't answered my question."
The dark wizard was taken aback for a moment.
Seeing this, Lockhart reminded him, "I just asked, where did you pop out from?"
The dark wizard just sneered without speaking.
Seeing that he didn't get an answer, Lockhart wasn't in a hurry. He just leisurely sat down on a nearby chair, looking at him with a smile. "Let me guess."
"Were you sent in by the school governors?"
There wasn't such a person's storyline in the second year of Harry Potter in the original books, which was strange.
Lockhart had to let his mind wander, thinking about all possibilities outside the framework of the original story.
When the pure-blood families on the Hogwarts Board of Governors disagreed with the path the headmaster was taking, and they couldn't do anything about this headmaster, they would definitely arrange some of their own people to keep an eye on the school.
If Dumbledore intended to implement his anti-pure-blood agenda in the school, influencing generations of young people who would eventually become the backbone of the British wizarding world, forming a force that would completely bury them, and then they were still stupidly providing large amounts of resources to this school, wouldn't they be big fool?
Wouldn't it be a better choice to cut off the supply of resources and provide everything to Durmstrang Institute, which supported them?
"No, no."
Lockhart rejected this idea himself. "If the school governors wanted to plant their own people, they could easily do so among the staff. There's no need to disguise themselves as a student."
"Such a sneaky approach..."
He had a new guess. "Were you sent in by Fudge?"
It was also possible that the Minister of Magic had seized the weakness of a dark wizard who had made a mistake and asked him to do something.
As an old-school politician who wasn't capable enough but had been pushed to a high position by Dumbledore, he must have been filled with unspeakable insecurity. It was reasonable to find someone to monitor the school's movements in order to obtain more information about Dumbledore, who could influence his entire future.
The middle-aged wizard just sneered.
"Still wrong?"
Lockhart chuckled. "It can't be someone sent by the Dark Lord, can it?"
"Correct answer!" The Boggart, transformed into a centipede coiled around the dark wizard, suddenly shouted, "I felt his emotions change! That's the answer!"
"!!!"
Lockhart was shocked and stood up in disbelief, staring intently at the man on the ground. "It really is Voldemort?"
The dark wizard's eyes instantly turned red. He struggled, twisting his body, his face angry and distorted, roaring, "How dare you! How dare you say the Dark Lord's name! I'll kill you! Kill you!"
The Dark Lord?
Clearly, this wasn't Tom Riddle, the horcrux in the diary plotting his famous resurrection.
It was Voldemort, who had been jinxed by his own Defense Against the Dark Arts job curse last school year, failing in a comical way and fleeing as a wraith, currently hiding somewhere.
Lockhart narrowed his eyes, his expression shifting uncertainly as he looked at him.
He trembled slightly, stroking the wand in his hand, a crazy impulse surging in his heart to drain the memories of this guy in front of him, turning him into a brain-dead idiot.
Cleanse all his memories, let him be an idiot who can't even walk!
However, that wouldn't change anything.
Voldemort was watching Hogwarts!
So many young wizards had participated in this battle. Even if Voldemort was as brain-damaged as he seemed, he would definitely realize the role he had played in it.
He was being watched!
He was going to be watched by Voldemort!
He knew that he was completely involved in this matter!
"Hahahaha..." The dark wizard looked at his changing expression and laughed wildly, hysterically, with a peculiar gasping sound, shouting viciously, "You're doomed! Gilderoy Lockhart! You're doomed! The Dark Lord is watching Hogwarts! He will know you ruined his plans!"
"He will kill you! Kill you!"
Lockhart looked up at the sky and sighed helplessly. "MMP, who did I offend!"
It wasn't me who ruined your lurking plan; it was that idiot Voldemort who cursed my job, which led to everything, understand!
He was really annoyed, and angrily waved his wand at the dark wizard.
Laugh!
Laugh your ass!
"Obliviate!"
The dark wizard's whole body began to tremble violently, convulsing involuntarily. A violently shaking silver mist emerged from his head, and strands of silver light, like intestines being pulled out, were drawn forth.
This was the crudest way to use the advanced Memory Charm.
A method of extraction that caused great damage to the brain, a method that the original Lockhart, who treated manipulating memories as an elegant art, would never use.
Inflicting harm was indeed the best way to vent anger. No wonder those dark wizards liked to do it this way.
A brilliant smile appeared on Lockhart's face. He gently shook his wand, directly eliminate the parts of the extracted memories that he didn't need, letting them dissipate into the air.
"Since I'm going to face a terrible attack anyway, it's not too much to take some things from you that can improve my strength, right?"
The dark wizard couldn't speak. His whole body was burning terribly, every nerve in his body sending out strong stimulating signals, causing him so much pain that he was almost completely unconscious. Yet, because his mind was highly tense, he couldn't trigger his body's self-preservation mechanism to faint.
Cruciatus Curse?
Heh~
The Memory Charm could also achieve this effect, understand? This was the method that wizards who walked the edge of the law would explore!
Lockhart finally finished fiddling with the memories floating in mid-air, stripping away all the other party's magical knowledge.
This was simply the most perfect memory surgery.
Without harming most of the other party's life memories and personality, he precisely stripped away the wisdom of his skills.
But at this moment, a sigh sounded behind him.
Lockhart turned his head and saw Dumbledore's tall figure standing in the doorway at some point, his gaze simply looking at him with a deep, thoughtful expression. "Lockhart, I don't advise you to do this."
"Heh~"
Lockhart sneered, waved his wand, causing the memories in mid-air to roll into a ball, and they fluttered into the pocket of his wizard's robe. Only then did he look at Dumbledore. "Professor Trelawney made a prophecy for me, saying that if I don't stay away from all this, Voldemort's curse will target me, and she even said I would die!"
He sighed unhappily. "I didn't leave. I did my best to do what a professor should do. But ah, Professor Dumbledore, I'm very unhappy. I've been targeted by a curse, and I face the threat of death every moment!"
"You have to let me vent!"
Dumbledore looked at his repressed emotions with astonishment. He wanted to say something, but he glanced back and saw Professor McGonagall approaching, finally falling silent and pursing his lips.
He knew, knew that Lockhart had stolen the wisdom of so many people in the past, including his old friends.
But so what?
For the greater good, some things could be sacrificed.
For example, Severus Snape, the Death Eater leader who had harmed so many wizards during the war, hadn't he also protected him?
He didn't actually have such high moral demands.
If Snape could, then Lockhart naturally could too.
Lockhart didn't actually have much room for choice. Anything anyone did would leave traces. International Aurors were already investigating the matter of wizards forgetting memories. It was he who had used his influence to suppress it, because finding a suitable Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was too difficult, too difficult.
Perhaps Professor Kettleburn's suggestion was good, letting Lockhart occasionally fill in for a year at intervals, which would greatly reduce his workload as headmaster.
In the end, the Lockhart before him's attitude towards teaching, his dedication to the young wizards, his academic rigor, and the improvement he brought to Hogwarts' teaching results in the field of Defense Against the Dark Arts had completely moved him.
People were selfish.
Hogwarts was his home. He was first a headmaster, then the Chief Warlock of the International Confederation of Wizards, and then the Chief Warlock of the British Ministry of Magic's Wizengamot.
Moreover...
Dark wizards didn't necessarily have to do evil things.
Environment and choices were really important.
And now he could give that choice.
He believed that Lockhart, staying at Hogwarts, would be like Snape staying at Hogwarts, eventually becoming a respected good professor, helping many people and influencing many people's lives, give full play to his beneficial side, rather than being a dark wizard who caused a lot of trouble for society outside.
Professor McGonagall's hurried arrival interrupted the brief stagnation of the atmosphere in the hut.
She looked down at the dark wizard and exclaimed, "Amycus Carrow?"
Amycus Carrow, one of the first Death Eaters to follow Voldemort.
During the first wizarding war, Amycus escaped capture and was not imprisoned in Azkaban, completely disappearing without a trace.
Professor McGonagall felt a lingering fear. This powerful dark wizard, whom she had fought many times before, had actually infiltrated the school and attacked so many students. It was incredibly lucky that no one was seriously hurt.
Lockhart raised an eyebrow beside her. He knew this guy.
This guy would become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after Voldemort's return in the future, forcing Neville to use the Cruciatus Curse on his classmates, spitting in Professor McGonagall's face, and even participating in the murder of Dumbledore.
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