Chapter 296: The Restricted Section Plan
The first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson began in precisely this atmosphere.
The moment Ron stepped into the classroom, he couldn't hold back a snort of laughter. What in Merlin's name was going on?
A gigantic self-portrait dominated the wall directly ahead: the wizard in the picture had artfully tousled golden hair, wore extravagantly embroidered turquoise robes, and was cheerfully painting… himself.
And it wasn't just one portrait. The entire Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom was plastered with Gilderoy Lockhart.
"One, two, three… seven—seven little Lockharts?" Ron wheezed, still laughing. He was thinking of the seven dwarves from the storybook Justin had once lent him in idle conversation. In return, Ron had given Justin a copy of The Tale of the Three Brothers—though Ron himself didn't own many storybooks at all.
"Don't be so rude!" Hermione snapped, shooting him a fierce look.
The rest of the class filed in, chattering—only to fall silent the instant they saw the walls.
Once everyone had taken their seats, Lockhart gave an exaggerated throat-clearing cough to command attention.
He reached down, lifted Neville Longbottom's copy of Travels with Trolls, and held it aloft so that everyone could see the winking photograph of himself on the cover.
"I," he declared, pointing at his own grinning face and winking in perfect synchronisation, "am Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award—but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Wagga Wagga Werewolf by smiling at it!"
He paused, waiting for laughter.
A few people managed weak smiles.
"I see you've all purchased my complete set of works—excellent. Today we'll begin with a little quiz. Nothing to be afraid of—just a check to see how well you've read them and how much you've absorbed…"
What followed was a test paper so despair-inducing that even the most diligent students blanched.
"What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?!"
Ron stared at the parchment in disbelief.
"What kind of question is that?"
Hermione was already scribbling furiously, shielding her answers with her left hand and inching closer to Sean as though to protect her work from prying eyes.
"Someone actually knows…" Ron muttered to Harry, then—on instinct—leaned across Hermione to sneak a glance at Sean's paper.
"Wait—lilac? How do you know that, Sean? Your perfect-score streak was supposed to end here!"
Ron craned his neck, utterly incredulous.
Did Sean secretly idolise Lockhart? That possibility was even less likely than Harry secretly idolising Snape.
"Page sixty-nine of Year with the Yeti, bottom right corner, third line from the bottom…" Sean replied calmly.
"Oh—Sean, you really don't have to read every single book cover to cover, especially not—"
Ron broke off, suddenly thoughtful. Sean never did anything without purpose.
So he returned to his own paper in silence—only to freeze at the very last question on the first page:
[What do you believe to be Mr. Hermes' true identity at Hogwarts?]
Followed by several more in the same vein: whether Lockhart's guidance would prove an indispensable part of "Mr. Hermes's" path to greatness, and so on.
Ron's gaze slid slowly toward Lockhart. The look in his eyes had turned wary.
Half an hour later Lockhart collected the papers and began flicking through them in front of the class.
"Tsk, tsk—almost no one remembered that my favourite colour is lilac. I mentioned it quite clearly in Year with the Yeti…"
He gave them another playful wink.
Ron was now glaring openly. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas were shaking with silent laughter in the front row. Hermione, however, listened with rapt attention.
Lockhart continued browsing. Each time he reached the final question on the first page he paused for the briefest moment—then flicked an interested glance toward a certain pair of calm green eyes.
"We have two perfect scores! Mr. Sean Green—and Miss Hermione Granger!
Excellent! Ten points each to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw! Now—on to the main business…"
He bent down and, with a flourish, lifted a large cage covered in dark cloth from behind his desk and placed it on the table.
"Now—be very careful! It is my job to teach you how to defend yourselves against the most evil creatures known to the wizarding world! In this classroom you will face the most terrifying things imaginable.
But rest assured—while I am here, no harm will come to you. All I ask is that you remain calm."
He launched into a long, self-congratulatory speech. Sean didn't hear a single word of it.
His mind was elsewhere—on the books in the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts library.
Secrets of the Darkest Art… Moste Potente Potions… Powerful Poisons… Those were the titles he remembered clearly.
There were many more he didn't.
Hogwarts had stood for over a thousand years. Its library held a constellation of knowledge—enough to tempt any witch or wizard who ever dreamed of plumbing the true depths of magic.
The difficulty lay in access: no book in the Restricted Section could be removed without a signed note from a professor.
During his summer stay at the castle, Sean had asked Madam Pince about it. Without hesitation she had handed him a small stack of blank permission slips. She didn't believe for a moment that Sean would fail to obtain the necessary signatures.
And now, the perfect person to sign them stood right in front of him.
Lockhart would sign a hundred without even glancing at the requests.
When Sean looked up again, the classroom had transformed.
Slate-blue creatures—Cornish pixies—shot about like rockets. Two of them seized Neville by the ears and hoisted him into the air. Several more smashed straight through the windows, showering the back row with broken glass.
The rest wreaked havoc on a scale that would have shamed a rampaging hippogriff. Ink bottles were hurled, books and parchment shredded, pictures torn from the walls, bins upended, schoolbags and textbooks flung out of the shattered windows.
Half the class had dived under desks. Neville dangled helplessly from the chandelier.
The bell rang.
Everyone bolted for the door in blind panic.
In the chaos, Lockhart straightened up, looked at the trio who had remained near Sean—Harry, Ron and Hermione—and said airily:
"Ah, I'll leave you five to round up the rest of the pixies and put them back in their cage."
He swept out ahead of them and shut the door firmly behind himself.
Hermione was already firing off Freezing Charms left and right. Harry had climbed onto a desk and was standing on tiptoe trying to reach Neville.
Ron, meanwhile, looked positively gleeful.
"Sean! You missed it—you have no idea what just happened these last few minutes! We didn't even have time to shout for you!"
Sean rose to his feet, brows faintly furrowed.
He lifted his wand.
A torrent of roaring flame erupted and swept through the entire classroom—flame that, for a fleeting instant, seemed to coil and take on the vague, majestic outline of a dragon.
The shrieking pixies were driven back against the walls. Sean's eyes narrowed; the stone itself came alive, opening great dark mouths that swallowed the creatures whole.
Another crisp flick of the wand.
Piles of books flew obediently into the air and arranged themselves into a towering, spiralling staircase.
Step by measured step, Sean ascended. He pointed his wand once more. Neville—tears streaming down his face—dropped gently onto a cushion of slowly circling pages that carried him safely downward.
"All right?" Sean asked quietly.
The classroom fell silent.
"That," Ron breathed, staring in open awe, "is what a real wizard looks like."
Harry nodded fervently.
Hermione's gaze travelled from the door through which Lockhart had fled, to the figure of Sean—calmly descending amid drifting pages with Neville cradled safely beside him.
"That fraud," she whispered.
Even the slowest student in the room could now see the difference between the two.
"Honestly," Ron muttered, "they'd be better off making Sean the professor…
Ask him what indispensable role Sean's guidance played in Lockhart's path to greatness…"
Harry was shaking with suppressed laughter.
(End of Chapter)
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