Harry Potter and the Room of Things no one Knows About
Chapter 7
What if Gilderoy Lockhart misunderstood his role at Hogwarts?
By
Jason Richard
So Harry was given detention to help Gilderoy Lockhart with his fan mail, something Harry decided he was not looking forward to. Fortunately, the professors had managed to repair most of the luggage that was blown up, though the bad news was that some people inevitably got caught with some rather embarrassing items found in their luggage.
...
Fred: "No professor, this stuff doesn't belong to us."
George: "Yeah! I mean what could we possibly even do with a plunger, duct tape, and twenty tadpoles in a jar?"
Flitwick: "I don't even want to know."
…
Of course what students were really talking about was the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. They inevitably wondered what the new teacher would be like every year, but this time it was a celebrity, so the talk was even more prominent. Surely it would be a magical experience to be taught by the man who wrote "Magical Me."
Well…
…
Gilderoy Lockhart flashed his most charming smile to the class. The girls in the class appreciated how handsome he was, while the boys in the class rolled their eyes simultaneously.
Lockhart: "Welcome, welcome, to the first Defense Against the Dark Arts Class of the year. I am Gilderoy Lockhart...but you already knew that."
Harry and Ron: "Ugh!"
Hermione: "Oh hush. Show some respect to your teacher."
This was the first time Lockhart noticed the intelligent young lady he'd met at the bookshop, and his eye began twitching.
"Well hello again," said Lockhart.
"I'm sorry," said Hermione. "Have we met? I think I would have remembered that."
Lockhart had to stifle his laughter as he said, "Well maybe. You did seem to suffer some sort of episode. If my knowledge of magical maladies is worth anything...which it is...then I suspected you were hit with a sudden case of magical memory loss...losing a year's worth of memory...so you'd have to repeat the first year...and I wouldn't have to see you again."
"That's exactly what happened!" said Hermione. "But I saved my homework notes from the first year…"
Harry and Ron: "Who does that?!"
"And it all came back to me once I read them," said Hermione. "So I get to continue my second year after all."
"Wonderful," said Lockhart, now stifling his tears. "Wonderful."
"But professor," said Hermione. "You are the Defense against the Dark Arts for every year, not just second, so even if I'd had to repeat the first year, you'd still be my teacher."
"I'm the teacher for every year?" said Lockhart. "How did I miss that?"
…
Earlier…
"So which year will I be teaching?" asked Lockhart. "Ooh, a mirror!"
As Lockhart admired himself in the mirror in Dumbledore's office, Dumbledore kept speaking.
"Every year of course," said Dumble, looking over some papers. He sighed, wishing he didn't have to do this to attract teachers to this position. "That should cover you being the famous Harry Potter's teacher like you wanted. You may not get the honor of being his first Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher to teach him, but you'll at least be the second."
"Second," said Lockhart, still admiring his reflection. "Got it. I'll remember that."
…
Lockhart, "I really should have been listening to that entire conversation. It did seem like a lot of textbooks to order for just the second year."
"I'll say," said Harry. "I wonder what the other years been doing while you weren't at class."
…
The fifth-year students waited for their professor in an empty classroom, getting quite bored. They had waited half an hour, and Gilderoy Lockhart had yet to show up.
Random Student: "So...should we just do study hall, or what?"
…
Every boy in the class was trying to stifle their laughter, while every girl looked disappointed.
Lockhart, meanwhile, was thinking, I have never needed to memory wipe an entire room so much.