Disclaimer: Not mine. Got it?
A/N: Well, when I got the reviews for last chapter, I must admit I had a good laugh. Do you people not read my notes or something? Anyways, I dealt with all you via e-mail. Just please pay more attention to these so you aren't all confused.
Updates are going to be once-weekly on Mondays, from now on. I'm trying to stay steady until summer, when I have no access to computers or the internet until school starts again. I'll try to get past the opening of the Chamber, or at least a reasonably good cliffie LOL.
Oh, and a few more things. I'm sorry for not updating for the last millennium, but it honestly wasn't my fault. Not only did I get a nasty arm injury, but I was grounded for 2 weeks when a combination of staying up too late to type and a sleepover in which we did not sleep much at all happened to anger the Almighty Head. I must apologize for this, and say that next time I'll be a little more careful about typing at three in the morning. As in I'll type quieter so mum doesn't notice.
No, one more thing. This section had to be split into several parts, unfortunately, due to the sheer length of it. Sorry.
I lied. The Card Players are in their second year, not their first (As was implied earlier).
Chapter Twelve: The Fan-Club of Gilderoy Lockhart
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Artemis, after that rather informative Potions class had ended, was in a good mood. Snape had managed to take almost fifty points from Gryffindor, and none from Ravenclaw (Except for when Chance had accidentally tipped his simmering Dye Potion onto Snape's robes, turning them into a very bright shade of pink.)
His next class was one he certainly did not look forward to; Defense Against Dark Arts. While passing Cho in the halls he had heard her whisper to Penelope Clearwater, one of her elder friends, that Lockhart was a wonderful teacher. Meaning, of course, he was the nitwit his books made him out to be.
He scowled at no one in particular, although an unfortunate first year who was in the line of fire cringed. He had learned absolutely nothing from that class other then not to upset Snape, and that was a given from their previous encounter. Quite frankly, he was beginning to think Hogwarts was a complete waste of time, and that he might have better served his time reading books at Flourish and Blotts, or going to the wizarding equivalent of the Library of Congress. (1)
After dodging a gigantic Slytherin's half-hearted attempt to trip him, he ducked into Lockhart's room. The heady smell of lilacs—Mother's scent, before Father had gone—filled his nose with regret. What was he getting himself into? The room resembled more of a half-wit's idea of a classroom, with wrongly constructed bestial bones (A dragon with a third wing. Honestly.) and several large, melodramatic cages that looked as if they could hold a Hippogriff, although by the high-pitched squealing from within, he doubted it.
And, of course, there was the pictures. Artemis had seen that Lockhart was an egotistic man by his writing alone—emphasizing brave actions, witty remarks, etc—but that was stretching far beyond the limits of reason. Coating every single wall was him smiling his sickenly bright smile, bleached white teeth and all. Not only that, but most of the pictures had him in lilac and carnation pink. Now, not to say that Artemis was a fashion-demon (Which he certainly wasn't), but men simply weren't meant to where pink and purple, especially when trying to look brave.
He gave the nearest of the photographs a quietly murmured spell that would turn brilliant white teeth brown, and again selected a chair next to Hermione at the front of the room. Much to his disgust, he saw her staring at one of the photographs with a dreamy smile on her face which, of course, did not match the object of her affection's. He had thought she had more sense then that.
This time, once he had sat down and placed his books on the table Hermione only sent him a dark glare, and continued to stare at the grinning photograph with a fanatic's fervor.
Moron. He thought sullenly, and found himself wishing that she would stop staring at the photograph. He knew she was smart—after all, it took someone of considerable intellect to beat Artemis Fowl in any was—and he had never truly met his match before. The closest thing that had come to it was that glorious on-line chess tournament with that grandmaster, but even that had been easy. It could have been a debate over anything, only of it involved two geniuses instead of the one he was used to.
No. he chided himself. Why would I want to talk to someone? I've gotten along fine without it until now. Even so, he found himself struck with the sudden impulse to blast all of the Lockhart-simulacrums in the world and talk to her. He had never before wanted to socialize with someone before, not even with Butler, who was the closest thing he had—would ever have—to a father. This was something strange to Artemis, and left him shaken to the core.
Finally, he gave in to it, and tapped Hermione hesitantly on the shoulder with an elegant finger.
"Yes?" she asked dreamily, her eyes still fixed on the photograph.
This isn't working… he told himself, and smirked when he came up with a brilliant scheme. One of his best.
Muttering the complex charm under his breath and waving his wand in subtle gestures he wove the spell of Seeming.
The spell of Seeming was one of the more complicated ones, although it was really little more then an illusion that could only be seen by the maker and a few selected people. In this case, he chose to make Lockhart materialize before the goo-goo-eyed Hermione, although he had to force himself to make the horrible smile. A few seconds later, he sat back, satisfied.
The simulacrum-Lockhart smiled brilliantly at Hermione, and she reverted her awed gaze to his illusion. Before her eyes Lockhart's smile faded away, replaced by the same brown-toothed leer worn by one of the portraits. His robe became black with a faint pink stain showing on his hem, and the hair darkened into greasy dreadlocks. A sallowness came to his skin as he became Severus Snape, and Hermione's expression became one of the utmost horror.
"EEW!" she shrieked, and squeezed her eyes shut as she realized exactly what she had been staring at with that fawning look. Unfortunately for her, Lockhart chose that moment to appear, and nearly leapt out of his periwinkle robes when he heard the ear-splitting shriek. Good thing he didn't.
Hermione clapped her mouth shut, but the damage had been done: dear Gilderoy found himself staring at the horrified Hermione with shock on his face.
"Excuse me?" the professor asked, smoothing back his slightly ruffled blond hair.
Hermione's face turned the shade of a ripened tomato, and any who knew of Commander Root's legendary coloring would have sworn they were somehow related. "Sorry sir." She muttered, and looked down, ashamed, at her lap. "I thought you were Professor Snape."
The class roared with laughter besides Artemis and the pair in question, making Hermione's blush deepened. Lockhart's jovial expression became one of mild amusement, obviously not getting the incredible insult. "Well, Miss Granger, you may want to make sure you didn't eat of the hallucinogenic mushrooms I fed to Natasha Blackwing in Voyages with Vampires. Why, that must have been…"
Artemis ceased to pay attention after that, his view of Lockhart only confirmed by his endless chatter. The women of the classroom, much to his greatly multiplying disgust, listened to his every brain-frying word with rapt attention that may have been better directed at the small black speck on the wall.
Except for Hermione. She appeared to be broken from his spell for the moment, and she leaned over towards Artemis. "That wasn't a very nice trick, Fowl."
Artemis allowed him the luxury of a smile. Was this true conversation at last? "Artemis, if you please. And I trust you know the spell?"
"Yes." She said absently, trying to look over his shoulder to see the content of his bookbag. "The spell of Seeming. Very advanced magic."
His eyebrow raised fractionally. It was a hard spell to identify, even by those that witnessed it firsthand. "Impressive." He said, and used the Alohomora spell to push his bookbag towards Hermione.
She reached into it eagerly, although she made sure to disguise her actions from the still blabbering Lockhart. Her eyes widened when she saw The Calling, and he silently cursed himself for bringing it along. Fellow genius or no, he could not have many people suspecting him of his plan. One of his plans.
"This sort of book isn't allowed here." She whispered furiously to him, pushing the bookbag back towards Artemis as if it were poison. "It shouldn't be allowed anywhere."
His small smile faded as he stared at her furious brown eyes. "Yes, it should." He whispered right back, and slipped the small green book into his bag. "You have no idea of what it can do."
She shook her head and opened her mouth to respond, but cut herself off as Lockhart abruptly stopped his endless line of chatter. "Anyways, enough about that venture. Now on to me." He walked across the classroom in two melodramatic steps and picked up a plump little boy's copy of Travels with Trolls and held it up so the entire classroom had to suffer through the portrait's insufferable winking.
"Me." He said, pointing to it and winking at the classroom as well. Whether it was on purpose or on accident that he was more-or-less synchronized with several of his portraits could not be said. "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary member of the Dark Force Defense 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 Bandon Banshee by smiling at her." Artemis somehow doubted that.
He paused for them to laugh; a few people smiled weakly, all strangely female.
"I see that you've all bought a complete set of my books—well done. I thought we'd start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about, just to check how well you've read them, how much you've taken in…" he trailed off, not knowing what to say. He filled in the gap with another disgusting smile, causing several of the girls to sigh audibly. Artemis was sorely tempted to pull another spell of Seeming on them, but decided it would be too much work.
He passed out the tests without another word, pausing only when Artemis gave him his best vampire-smile. After looking sufficiently cowed, Lockhart turned away and passed out tests to considerably more receiving girls that had sat near the front.
Artemis looked down at the test, bringing out his simple gull-feather pen—he didn't want the obscenely long and fluffy ends of most to get in the way of concentration—and wrinkled his nose in disgust. You really couldn't blame the poor boy:
1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart;s favorite color?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition?
3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date?
4. What did Gilderoy Lockhart say to Natasha Blackwing?
And on it went, over three sides of paper, right down to:
54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be?
At this point Artemis got a very, very good idea. No one would suspect him, and it would be the perfect way of getting revenge against the egotistic teacher. Trying to look as if he was thinking about the first question—if he actually did, it would undoubtedly kill a few brain cells—he passed his wand over the test and whispered, "Duosa."
Slowly, a duplicate of the parchment materialized in the air above the real test, and fell gently on top. With a faint frown of concentration, Artemis got to work.
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A half hour later, Lockhart called an end to the quiz period, collecting the tests without even noticing that Artemis handed in two instead of one. Of course, with the many papers the test took up, it was hard to differentiate.
He walked to the head of the classroom, backed by a dozen of his grinning simulacrums, and ruffled through the papers. "Tut, tut." He said, frowning slightly. "Hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves a little more carefully—I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples—though I wouldn't say no to a large bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey."
He gave them a large roguish wink, and bent his head to check through several more papers. Artemis leaned over to remark upon this to Hermione, only to find that she was back under his spell. Strange he thought, and returned to listening to the Professor, waiting for his paper to be mentioned.
"…but Miss Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care products—good girl! In fact—" He flipped her paper over—"full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?"
Hermione raised a trembling hand, looking down so the spreading blush wouldn't be as noticeable.
"Excellent!" beamed Lockhart. "Quite excellent! Take ten points to Gryffindor!"
Hermione's blush deepened, making Artemis briefly wonder why girls blushed so much.
"And what's this?" Lockhart asked, wiping all other thoughts out in his anticipation. "Someone said my favorite color was hot-pink?"
There was a long pause in which a few people from the back chuckled—Harry Potter and his pet Weasely, by the sound of it.
"And that my secret ambition was to 'Make all suffer beneath the face of his smile'? And that my greatest achievement was 'enchanting all the girls so they fell over in their helpless groveling'? I'll have you know that I work very hard to keep myself beautiful, and my smile is the result of hard work!"
Everyone was laughing by now, and Artemis joined in just to erase himself as a suspect. Keep reading, keep reading…
"And that my statement to Natasha Blackwing was 'Keep on swimming, keep on swimming 'ol girl; Dracula ain't coming to town'? What is meaning of this? Who wrote this?" The paper shuffled as he looked for a name, and he got one:
"Made by Severus Snape?" Lockhart asked angrily—although he did not look the least bit frightening. "Well, I'll—" Whatever he said after this was lost to the roaring laughter, and Artemis smiled in satisfaction. Perfect; the idiot has been riled. With the git's pride hurt, he would do many things that would distract the teachers—and in turn provide time for Artemis to play out his growing idea.
Hermione leaned over, smiling slightly despite the faint glaze-ness to her eyes. "Was that you?" she asked, her voice barely heard over Lockhart's attempts to quiet the tumultuous classroom.
"Did you not hear him?" Artemis asked, a similar smile curving his lips. "It was Severus Snape, whom had just appeared in this very room."
Hermione's smile broadened, but then froze when she realized that, against all odds, Lockhart had gotten the classroom in some assemblage of order. Sort-of.
"Now—" the Professor shouted, quieting the class down a few more decibels. "My job here is to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I can ask is that you remain calm."
By now the entire class was silent in anticipation, although the plump boy Artemis had noticed earlier was cowering in his front view seat, being right before the cage Lockhart was presumably about to open. The remaining two hacklers had quieted by now, probably Dean and Seamus from what he had been able to overhear.
"I must ask you not to scream." Lockhart said in a low voice. "It might provoke them."
The entire class drew in a collective breath, including Artemis. What sort of teacher was he, to bring in dangerous creatures to a group of inexperienced, stumbling buffoons?
"Yes." Lockhart said dramatically, whipping off the cover of the cage, causing several people reached for their wands out of fear… "Freshly caught Cornish pixies." …and they let go of them again.
The two boys in the back near Harry and Ronald could not contain their laughter, which even Lockhart could not mistake for a scream of terror.
"Yes?" Lockhart asked, watching the cage warily out of the corner of his eye.
One of them, Seamus, laughed again. "Well, they're not—they're not—they're not dangerous, are they?"
"Don't be so sure!" Lockhart said warningly, his tone unbelievably serious as he waggled his finger annoyingly at the entire class. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be."
The pixies were an electric blue that took the notion right out of Artemis' head that they were in any way related to the Fairy People—although The Calling would later address those issues, at least according to the table of content. About eight inches high with extremely angular faces, they did not even sound like Holly or the Commander with their shrill voices and annoying buzzing from their wings—although they argued about as much as them. The moment the cover had been removed they had started to buzz like supersonic hornets, rocking the cage violently. Several of them decided to pull faces at the people in the front row; Artemis pulled a derisive sneer towards the cage, and most of them stopped.
"Right then." Lockhart said loudly, inching away from the cage. "Let's see what you make of them…" And he opened the cage with the tip of his wand, and dived towards the protection of his expansive desk.
Frankly, Artemis couldn't blame him; the small bolts of blue lightening instantly made their way across the room, ganging up in pairs or threesomes to defend themselves against the surprised students. Their quick slanted green eyes found every object worthy of being ripped and torn, from black school robes to Lockhart's grinning photographs—much to Artemis' relief.
Although Artemis had quickly begun a flurry of hexes to disable as many of the surrounding pixies as he could, none came within a three foot radius around him, despite the abundance of books both he and the hexing Hermione had brought. He mentally filed this away for later investigation, and turned his full concentration at the matter at hand. To say the least, the pixies were not happy.
With both Artemis and Hermione taking care of the front of the room with their rapid spells and wards, Harry and Ron had a hard time defending the back by themselves. Not nearly as proficient as the other pair, many of the surrounding people were victimized by the chattering demons. Two of them seized Neville Longbottom by the ears and hung him on the same dragon skeleton Artemis had scrutinized earlier. Several of them shot straight through the back window towards freedom and the Forbidden Forest, showering the back row with broken glass. The rest were having the time of their lives, and their incredible ability to create pandemonium would have shamed a rampaging rhinoceros.
"Come one now, round them up, round them up!" Lockhart called from under his desk, one end of his wand poking out from his shelter. One of the pixies took advantage of this and clung to the end, biting sharp little teeth into it. "They're only pixies." His last words came out as a strangled grasp as the pixie let go and but into his little finger.
No one was listening besides the coldly calculating Artemis, who was beginning to admit pixies were harder to control then he had previously thought. This would have to be reconsidered while reading in The Calling…
Lockhart, for some strange reason deciding that it was wise to stand up from under his desk and face off the pixies, rolled up his sleeves and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!" The lone pixie was still stubbornly clinging to his finger, which was bleeding badly. Artemis hoped it would scar.
It had absolutely no effect, to no one's surprise; the pixie that was giving the Professor the nibble snatched his wand again by the teeth and flew off with it out the broken window. Neville fell to the ground as one of the pixies undid the clasp that held his cloak together, nearly landing on Lockhart. His black robes fell after him, covering Lockhart and tangling him up as pixies narrowed in on his position and bit deep into the wool.
The bell rang, and there was a mad rush towards the door to escape the vengeful pixies. Lockhart flung the black cape away from him, luckily landing just so his attackers were buried beneath the suffocating robes. Catching sight of the remaining four—Artemis, Hermione, Harry and Ron—he said quickly, "Well, I'll just ask you four to take care of the—" He cut himself off when a few more pixies came after him, and he sprinted into his office and slammed the door behind him.
"Can you believe him?!" the red-head yelped as one of the pixies bit him in the ear. Artemis noted coldly that his wand was broken—he would do well to stay away from it.
Hermione, still besides Artemis expertly freezing and flinging the pixies back into their cage by her wand, shook her head. "He just wants to give us some hands-on experience." she argued, and edged closer to Harry and Ron.
Artemis remained silent, although a quick glance towards Hermione showed that even she was a bit doubtful now.
"Hands-on?" Harry asked, lunging for a pixie that had decided to pull obscene faces at him. "Hermione, he didn't have a clue of what he was doing!"
"Rubbish." Hermione shot back, stuffing the last of the pixies away with a quick alohamora spell. The locked clicked shut, and she turned to the three panting boys in front of her. "You've all read his books. Look at all the amazing things he's done—"
"He says he's done." Ron muttered darkly, throwing Artemis a suspicious glare. "And what are you doing here?"
"You're welcome." Artemis replied coolly, brushing back his only slightly mussed hair from his brow. He hadn't even broken into a sweat.
Harry glanced at Ron, who kept a firm hold on his broken wand, and turned towards Hermione. "You know him?" he asked, jerking his thumb towards Artemis.
"Yes." Hermione said simply. "And I trust him." With that, she flounced out of the room, grabbing Neville's lost cloak as she went out the broken door, followed closely by Ron and Harry.
Artemis smiled as he bent down and picked up the lone piece of paper on the floor. The grin broadened as he realized who the owner was, and what delightful blackmail possibilities could result.
That smile stayed firmly fixed as he carefully stacked his remaining books into his bag, and folded the paper so no one would be able to see who was featured so prominently in it.
The only thing that could be seen of it was the brilliant smile that flashed upon it as Artemis walked down the hallway towards Herbology, trying to enchant a few more victims to add to his ever-growing fan-club.
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Plenty of book-verse, I know. But you simply cannot beat Rowling for coming up with stupid lines like Lockhart's.
The 'incident' shall have to wait. I put in most of the back-ground for it, and it should occur next chapter. Oh boy, you're going to loooooooooove it! *shrinks from disapproving looks* I just had to make a movie for Science class in which I played someone very similar to Mary-Sue in this story…except her face is pink, her eyes are blue, she has nasty pink pigtails that her mother called 'adorable', wore pink-and-black robes, and several other disturbingly girlish items. My perfectly normal nails were painted hot-pink, I had to talk like a moron…. It was HORRIBLE! Anyways, I think it's been rubbing off on me…
If I sound like this in my A/Ns next chapter, kill me swiftly before it spreads.
Namárië,
*`~Nallasariel the Weeper