Chapter 6: Gilderoy Lockhart

"We're doomed. Doomed, I tell you!" exclaimed Draco at breakfast. They'd all just been given their timetables by Professor McGonagall, and had discovered to their dismay that their third class of the day, after lunch, was DADA with Lockhart. Professor Snape, having heard his godson's words from across the room due to the volume, snorted. Hermione, who was sitting opposite him and reading Year with the Yeti while making frequent notes on mistakes and falsities, said, "Oh don't be so dramatic, Draco. Yes, from what these books reveal, he doesn't know one lick of defence, but with how badly it was taught last year, surely we ought to at least give him a chance to be better than Quirrel? I mean, he's already better in terms of not being possessed by Voldemort."

Draco scoffed, but Neville butted in before Draco could talk again. "She has a point, guys. Let's at least wait until we've had him before we judge."

"Easy for you four to say," said Fred.

"We don't have him until Friday," explained George.

"I don't have him until tomorrow," said Ginny, "and I just checked with Luna, she doesn't have him until Monday!"

The four second years groaned, and Harry banged his head on the table, barely missing a collision with his bowl of porridge.

Eventually, still bemoaning their fates, they headed towards the greenhouses. Unfortunately, they came across Lockhart much earlier than they should have, for there he was, striding beside Professor Sprout, immaculately dressed in sweeping robes of turquoise. In complete contrast to the perfectly coiffed wizard, Professor Sprout was a squat little witch, often wearing a patched hat over her flyaway hair. She reminded Harry of Neville during the summer; dusted with a large amount of earth, and dirty nails that would have made the old Draco faint, but now simply sniff.

"Oh, hello there!" Lockhart called, beaming around at the group of students waiting for their Herbology lesson. "Just been showing Professor Sprout the right way to doctor a Whomping Willow. Seems it got into a bit of a spat with some thestrals! But I don't want you running away with the idea that I'm better at Herbology than she is!" He went on for another minute, nattering away on how he'd met many of them on his 'travels', with Professor Sprout becoming gradually more annoyed, until finally she called out, "Greenhouse Three today, chaps!" and ushered them in the correct direction. "We've never been there before," whispered Dean loudly to Seamus.

The Professor unlocked the door and let the group of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors in, but just before Harry could follow Draco inside, Lockhart's hand shot out to grab Harry's shoulder. He stiffened. "Unhand me, sir," he growled.

Lockhart smiled in what he must have assumed was a disarming manner. "Now Harry, dear boy, I just wanted to make sure that what happened in Flourish and Blotts was merely—"

Harry cut him off with a slash of his hand that also got rid of Lockhart's grip. "It was no misunderstanding, sir! I warned you not to touch me, and you have done exactly that, with around twenty witnesses. Leave, now, and by tomorrow I shall have a restraining order against you."

Lockhart had paled as Harry spoke, and by his final sentence, seemed almost ready to faint. He picked up his robes and fled the scene, not daring to look back.

"Well done, Mr Potter-Black. You handled that situation admirably," said Professor Sprout.

The rest of class went fairly smoothly. Well, as smoothly as it could possibly get whilst Mandrakes were having temper tantrums all over the greenhouse. It made having to re-pot fifty of them extremely messy, and by the end of class, not a one of them was free from sweat, pain, and earth. The Gryffindors rushed back to the castle as quickly as possible so they could have a quick wash and a change of robes so they could get to Transfiguration on time.

Ron had the most trouble out of their group that lesson. He described it to the others as everything from first year having been washed away as soon as he'd handed in his last exam. They were going over how to turn a beetle into a button, a feat which was achieved perfectly by Hermione, then by Draco. Mid-way through, Harry succeeded, although his button still had the pattern that the beetle's exoskeleton had had, and not ten minutes after that, Neville managed a partial transfiguration, with a shallow line down the middle instead of holes. Seamus accidentally blew up half of his desk, and the ensuing smoke caused Ron to squash his beetle with his wand because he couldn't see it very well. McGonagall wasn't happy.

Finally, the lunch bell rang, and they all traipsed into the Great Hall, ate their lunch, met up with the twins, Ginny, and Luna, then went outside into one of the courtyards. After happily spending the rest of the break with his friends, Harry led the way back inside, but before he reached the door, he almost bumped into Colin Creevey. Bright red, he stared up at Harry, clutching a Muggle camera. "All right, Harry? I-I'm Colin Creevey," he said breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm in Gryffindor, too. D'you think—would it be all right if—can I have a picture?" He raised the camera hopefully.

Harry inwardly sighed. He'd met lots of people before who held the same sort of dumbstruck awe towards him before, and unfortunately, he knew of no way to counteract it. Fortunately for him, he had Draco. "Who's your friend, Harry?" he asked.

Colin somehow blushed even more, and muttered something unintelligible. "Colin Creevey," Harry answered. "He'd like a picture."

"Ooh!" Hermione exclaimed, catching on. "I do so love pictures! Okay. Dean, Fred, George, you three in the back. Seamus, Ron, Neville, Draco, you're on the right. Ginny, Luna, and I will be on the left, and Harry and Colin, you'll be in the middle."

Colin's eyes were very wide now, but had to ask one question. "What about my camera?"

Dean stepped in. "We can hover it, and you can adjust the angle, then time-delay the photo."

Colin was beaming now, and they all did as suggested. After the photo had been taken, Colin was almost in tears with how welcoming they'd all been. "Thank you! I've been really worried I wouldn't fit in here. I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic until I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad's a milkman, he couldn't believe it either. I'd never really had many friends in school, so I was hoping I could find some."

"Well then, it's a good thing we've got an opening, Colin," said George.

"You'll fit right in!" said Fred.

"Really?" Colin asked.

They all nodded, and then the bell rang, prompting Ginny and Luna to lead him away to their joint History of Magic class.

"Well," Draco sighed. "Time to face the music."

The dreaded class started with Lockhart picking up Lavender Brown's copy of Travels with Trolls and held it up to show his own, winking portrait on the front. "Me," he said, "Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League, and five times 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!"

He waited for them to laugh. No one did.

"I see you've all bought a complete set of my books—well, most of you have." He frowned at Neville, Hermione, Draco, and Harry, although when he got to Harry, he looked more constipated than anything. "Ahem. 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…"

The questions were absolutely ridiculous, so the four of them decided their answers may as well be just as ridiculous.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour? Blue — no! Yellow —aaaargh!

2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart's secret ambition? To have his home filled with autographed pictures of himself.

3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart's greatest achievement to date? Convincing the Board of Governors that every student needs to buy every one of his books.

The quiz continued over three sides of parchment, all the way down to:

54. When is Gilderoy Lockhart's birthday, and what would his ideal gift be? His birthday was the beginning of the new financial year, and his ideal gift would be for every person, Muggle and wizard alike, to have purchased all his books.

Harry and Draco were sniggering at their answers as, half an hour later, Lockhart collected in the papers and rifled through them. "Tut, tut—hardly any of you remembered that my favourite colour is lilac. I say so in—" He paused, and his ears turned redder and redder as he quickly flitted through the quartet's answers. It was a good thing they'd decided not to put their names on them. He cleared his throat again. "I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves 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 Firewhisky!"

The rest of the lesson was horrible as well. Lockhart had brought a small, covered cage with lots of extremely claustrophobic Cornish pixies inside. Harry was sure he could see one hyperventilating in their midst.

Then, he released them. Chaos ensued as Lockhart shouted, "Come on now, round them up, round them up, they're only pixies!"

He rolled up his sleeve, brandished his wand and bellowed, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"

It did nothing to prevent the destruction of the classroom, and one of the pixies grabbed the wand out of Lockhart's wand and threw it out of the already destroyed window. He gulped and ran from the classroom, leaving the second-years to clean up his mess.

Finally, after twenty minutes chasing down all the pixies that hadn't escaped out of the window and immobilising them, they stuffed them into their bags and rushed out of the castle, across the sloping lawns, and arrived at Hagrid's hut. "Hagrid!" Harry called out, knocking on the heavy wooden door.

"Yeah?" he asked when he opened the door. "Oh, it's you four. What can I do fer yeh today?"

Hermione quickly took over the narrative, explaining how badly the creatures had been treated. If there was one thing Hagrid was passionate about, it was magical creatures, as was obvious by the dark, angry look that crossed his face as their tale unfolded.

In the end, he agreed to take the Cornish pixies and find a home for them, and they all had some tea before it was time to head back up for their next lesson. This was going to be a long year.