The slacker professor at Hogwarts

064 The secret room is open!

Rita pushed open the door and rushed out, displaying the excellent qualities expected of a professional journalist.

Unbeknownst to her, Lockhart was smiling and sipping tea in the office behind her, looking completely unhurried.

In fact, he couldn't rush things.

After all, at such a crucial moment, he didn't want Professor McGonagall and the others to see a reporter with him; that would be too annoying.

because……

The secret room has been opened!

When Lockhart walked out of the office, the staircase at the end of the corridor was already crowded with young wizards. They were all whispering and looking mysterious, occasionally pointing to Harry Potter and the others at the corner of the stairs below.

"Professor Lockhart!" a young wizard shouted excitedly, spotting him. "Great! Professor Lockhart is here!"

This scene seems somewhat familiar.

Oh, right, last time Ron cast the Slug Spell on Draco and it bounced off his broken wand, some young wizards shouted excitedly like that, as if they had met a savior.

Lockhart wished no one could see her that time.

Without realizing it, things have already changed.

He strode forward, holding the Herb of Learning Sound, nodding to each of the young wizards who greeted him, as if he had descended upon Harry Potter like a savior.

"Children, what happened?"

His smile was always full of confidence that feared no difficulty, and always carried a gentle radiance, which immediately relaxed the tense spirits of the young wizards.

"professor……"

Hermione excitedly pulled him aside, pushing aside several older students, and pointed ahead, "Look!"

On the wall ahead, between two windows, were some blood-red writings that shimmered faintly in the light of the burning torches.

—The secret room has been opened.

Be wary of those who oppose your heir.

Yes, this is an inscription from the original work, Lockhart knows it.

The key point is that below these two lines of text, there is an extra line of text that I don't remember.

—All those who betray me and advocate standing against me will be punished!

This is very interesting.

For Tom Riddle, this line made no difference, but for certain groups it was a devastating blow!

As for which groups...

Just look at the victims of this basilisk sighting to know.

The window next to the writing was pushed open, and Professor McGonagall looked at him with a serious expression. "Professor Lockhart, you'd better come and see."

Lockhart quickly went into the classroom next door and was shocked to see two young wizards standing motionless, laughing heartily, looking inexplicably strange.

It was Gregory Gore and Vincent Crabbe, Malfoy's two henchmen.

Draco was curled up on the ground nearby, trembling, and looked terrified.

Professor Snape examined him, then stood up and solemnly recounted the events in a low voice, "All three of them were there. Draco claimed he was sitting in that chair thinking, and by the time he realized there was no sound behind him, they were already like this."

He gestured to a spot in the corner of the classroom, with his back to Gore and Crabbe.

Lockhart pursed his lips and remained silent, slowly walking over to Goyle and Crabbe, following their gaze to the window beside them, which was now obscured by a dung bomb thrown by some unknown young wizard.

"They look petrified," Professor Flitwick of the Charms class observed and made his judgment.

In the common realm of wizarding magic, petrification is generally used to describe a wizard's body becoming so stiff that it seems like a stone, not that it actually turns into stone.

The most famous one is the Full Body Binding Spell, whose incantation is "Petrify them all".

Professor Flitwick tried casting counter-spells and counter-spells one by one, and even stood on tiptoe, waving his wand in front of Goyle and Crabbe. In the end, he shook his head regretfully, "But unlike the Full Body Binding Charm, which only immobilizes the body and does not affect the eyes, they look like they've been petrified."

Lohat nodded, and a wisp of black smoke flew out of the pocket of his wizard's robe, landed in his palm, and was held up in front of Goyle and Crabbe.

"Their consciousness has completely subsided."

He shook his head at Professor Snape and the others, "Even the Boggarts can't sense their inner thoughts."

Just then, the classroom door was pushed open again, and Dumbledore strode in, accompanied by Filch, the castle gatekeeper.

Dumbledore, holding the Elder Wand, had a tense expression on his face. He had clearly just searched every corner of the castle but hadn't found anything.

Filch shouted from the side, "It's Harry Potter, it must be him! Lots of people saw it, Potter and his friends were sneaking around the castle all of a sudden, and then they were caught by this wall. They even said they heard Parseltongue and came after them, saying there was a snake saying things like 'Kill him' and other nonsense. Humph, everyone knows Harry Potter speaks Parseltongue, only he can understand those disgusting snakes..."

"Mr. Filch!"

Lockhart interrupted his long-winded explanation, shaking his head at him. "I'm the one who teaches the children Parseltongue; they all understand it."

"???" Filch blinked, really not understanding how talking to snakes could be taught?

Even Professor McGonagall, Professor Snape, and Professor Flitwick looked at Lockhart with surprise.

"You taught them Parseltongue?" Professor Snape's expression turned strange.

Lockhart shrugged and spread his hands. "Parnassus is also a defense against the dark magic, so why not teach it?"

As the saying goes, "It's always good to have more skills when you're out in the world." Having more skills means having more ways to protect yourself, which is great.

Dumbledore clearly didn't see it that way. He stood to the side, watching Lockhart thoughtfully, his eyes flickering slightly behind his half-moon spectacles.

Lockhart clearly knew something, but he was unwilling to say it; he knew and understood.

But this doesn't mean he intends to maintain this attitude when the children at school are attacked; even if the other party doesn't say anything, he can listen for himself.

pity……

He can't hear anything.

Or rather, he heard everything.

A dozen or so voices roared in Lockhart's mind, some screaming at the top of their lungs, some laughing hysterically, and some even sounding like a distorted mix of several overlapping scenes, from childhood to old age...

Lockhart's mind was filled with turmoil.

Dumbledore never imagined that Professor Lockhart, who usually had such a sunny and cheerful smile, would maintain such a terrifying state in his mind every moment.

To be fair, most people would have gone crazy long ago.

Dumbledore's Legilimency lasted only a short while before he couldn't stand the sounds and had to stop casting the spell, letting out a sigh of relief.

Stealing someone else's memories really does come at a price.

There is no such thing as getting something for nothing in this world; fate has already secretly marked a price for everything.

On the way to take the two poor little wizards to Madam Pomfrey's infirmary, Dumbledore called out to Lockhart, "I haven't found any trace of Rita Skeeter."

Lockhart was taken aback. "She left after her interview with me. You don't suspect she opened the secret room, do you?"

Dumbledore couldn't help but chuckle. "If she did it, then I've misjudged her."

But he didn't sense any trace of Rita leaving Hogwarts; it was as if she had vanished into thin air, and he didn't know where she had gone.

He found out very quickly.

The next day at breakfast, owls swarmed into the Great Hall, and a large number of Daily Prophet newspapers almost buried the headmaster.

Lockhart naturally had a copy as well; the original owner had long subscribed to these publications to collect all reports about herself.

Today's front-page headline: "Hogwarts Suffers Major Attack! Two Students Killed!"

Two photos are placed side by side in the very center of the page.

One photo shows bloodstains on a wall, the angle of which was clearly carefully chosen. Surrounded by countless young wizards, the school janitor Filch points at the savior Harry Potter and angrily shouts something.

Another photo is of the classroom inside the wall. In the photo, Dumbledore stands with a grim face next to the petrified Goyle and Crabbe, half of his face is obscured by shadow, making him look particularly terrifying.

As for the content of the report...

Honestly, if Lockhart were Dumbledore, he would be thinking of killing Rita, that reporter who loves to stir up trouble, right now, with those words that were so wildly provocative to the reader's emotions.

Of course, what he really wanted to know was...

Voldemort's former henchmen, those Death Eaters and other followers who once defended themselves in the Wizengamor Tribunal, claiming they were bewitched by the Dark Lord and thus escaped punishment, must be feeling something quite different now.

The graphic statement in the photo, "All those who betray me and advocate standing against me will be punished!" must be quite jarring to look at.

Oh~

Let him think about who they are.

Lucius Malfoy! (Member of the Holy Twenty-Eight Pureblood Families)

Old Crabbe! (Member of the Holy Twenty-Eight Pureblood Families)

Old Gore! (Member of the Holy Twenty-Eight Pureblood Families)

Old Nott! (Member of the Holy Twenty-Eight Pureblood Families)

Little Avery! (Member of the Holy Twenty-Eight Pureblood Families)

Igor Karkaroff! (Currently the headmaster of Durmstrang School of Witchcraft and Wizardry)

Coban Yaxley! (Currently an official of the Ministry of Magic)

Walton McNeil! (Currently an employee of the Ministry of Magic, responsible for exterminating magical creatures that have committed crimes)

Fenrir Greyback! (Currently the leader of a werewolf pack)

……

There were so many people who thought Voldemort was really dead. They either claimed to be threatened with death or said he was controlled by the Imperius Curse. In short, they all had the same line: "I am mortal with evil."

Now, evil has returned.

They opened the Chamber of Secrets at Hogwarts and released monsters. Many of their descendants are in this school. First Goyle and Crabbe, who will be next?

Could it be that they are outside the secret room?

just now……

These people probably want Voldemort to return even less than Dumbledore, hehe.

This is the appetizer!

Voldemort, enjoy!

The young Tom Riddle was too intolerant of injustice; he was too naive and treated his traitorous subordinates as enemies without understanding the importance of compromise.

Old Fu, Little Tang is frantically dismantling your power and pushing your men to the opposite side. What should you do?

Should we storm into Hogwarts and kill Tom Riddle?

If that were the case, a Voldemort ghost versus Tom Riddle's ghost would be incredibly interesting.