Chapter 108: The Audacious Lockhart

Thanks to Tom Riddle, after Dumbledore took away that dirty piece of paper, he awarded Gryffindor thirty more points.

As for Snape's threat last night to deduct a hundred points and assign detention, the headmaster unilaterally deemed it merely an outburst of anger and invalid—this decision once again enraged Snape.

Silven had been quite pleased, even deciding not to hold a grudge over Snape secretly taking half his mandrake juice.

But when the third person came to ask him what exactly had happened last night, he began to understand Snape's mood.

Someone had leaked the events of last night, and now almost everyone knew Silven had been attacked by a mysterious creature and nearly died.

They even described his petrification process in detail, claiming he sat pitifully in the corner of the corridor, terror frozen in his eyes, as if awaiting a powerful wizard to save him from death.

Just hearing these words from Harry made Silven's whole body tighten, his scalp prickling with embarrassment.

Was he really like that?

Probably not—he felt his reaction had been swift: he first used the unicorn's soul to avoid the basilisk's gaze, then escaped its perception by becoming petrified.

He also deliberately left behind the mandrake juice to help the school quickly brew the petrification-reversing potion…

But due to the unicorn, that step proved useless; Silven had never known a unicorn's soul could be used this way—a moving anti-dark-magic?

This was the only thing Silven hadn't anticipated; apart from that, even now, upon reflection, he saw no mistake in his actions.

"I nearly died, and the petrification was real—but I didn't panic," Silven said, not for the first time.

"Where on earth did you hear all this?"

"The whole school knows," Ron said.

"I think you should've guessed," Harry suddenly glanced at Hermione and lowered his voice. "That exaggerated style—the kind of description where everyone's waiting for a hero to appear—doesn't that sound familiar?"

Hm?

Hearing Harry say that, Silven suddenly realized it did sound familiar—he'd read something like it not long ago.

Villagers tormented by werewolves, suffering day and night, longing for a powerful wizard to drive them away—wasn't that exactly the plot of Lockhart's book, *With the Werewolves*?

…

Sure enough, by the next day, the rumor had changed again.

The first half remained the same: Silven was attacked, powerless to resist, helplessly watching himself turn to stone.

But now there was a second half—essentially, the righteous Lockhart arrived in time, the attacker fled in terror, and Silven was saved.

"Did Lockhart really save you?" Professor Sprout was demonstrating how to insulate withered figs in winter, while Ron and Harry stared fixedly at Silven.

Hermione had initially pretended indifference, but soon subtly leaned closer.

"What do you think?" Silven cut off excess branches, sighing. "That thing dared attack me on the eighth floor—it clearly isn't afraid of Dumbledore. Do you think it would flee at the mention of Lockhart's name?"

"No!" Harry blurted out.

"Well, not necessarily…" Hermione argued. "Professor Lockhart is more active… yes, he's done so many astonishing things—he's the most popular wizard in the Wizarding World, while Headmaster Dumbledore hasn't appeared in public for a long time."

"Hermione, Dumbledore doesn't need to appear," Ron glanced at her. "And Lockhart has never cast a single spell in front of us—not once."

Lockhart's tricks could fool people for a while, but now that school had been open two months, more and more people had noticed he'd never cast even a single Lumos in class—all were performed by students.

"But…" Hermione stammered, unable to speak, until she finally glanced at Professor Sprout and remembered something.

"But none of the other professors have said anything—remember, many professors, including the headmaster, were there too," Hermione convinced herself first, her confidence growing with each word.

"If Professor Lockhart really lied, Professor McGonagall would've exposed him."

"That's exactly what makes him clever," Silven spread his hands.

The basilisk had indeed fled before the professors arrived—regardless of why, it fled.

Although Silven knew this had nothing to do with the professors, others didn't.

So even though Lockhart shamelessly claimed credit, none of the other professors directly refuted him, because no one knew whether the basilisk had truly been scared off.

The same applied to Silven's restoration—he didn't move, and neither did any professor; Silven simply inexplicably returned to normal.

According to Dumbledore's later analysis, it likely had something to do with the mysterious unicorn spirit.

But Lockhart "accidentally" revealed during a Defense Against the Dark Arts class: "I merely used a Human form spell in secret—I didn't expect it to work… I mean, even the headmaster had failed before. I thought the Human form spell wouldn't work at all."

Only Lockhart had stood at the very edge; no one knew if he'd cast any spell, so even though everyone suspected he was boasting, no one bothered to refute him.

Silven didn't speak up either—he only contradicted when others asked.

The unicorn soul thing was too unbelievable; if he told it, no one would believe him.

Also, the book *The Magical Me* found in the bathroom made Silven suspect Lockhart again.

Was the diary truly not in his possession? Then why did his autobiography suddenly appear in the bathroom?

Who else would carry such a thick book around everywhere?

Although he'd already told Dumbledore everything, Silven himself wanted to find the person who'd taken his ordered "wand core."

He'd prefer to find the diary before Dumbledore did—otherwise, he'd have to hunt for another Horcrux.

By the way…

Silven suddenly remembered: Hogwarts had another Horcrux—the Ravenclaw Diadem, in the Room of Requirement.

Excited, Silven nearly cut off the withered fig, but barely dodged in time—the sharp scissors still pierced the fruit's skin.

Instantly, the once-plump fig shrank into a tiny ball, only one-tenth its original size.

"Focus, Ollivander!" Professor Sprout didn't look pleased.

But she knew Silven had nearly been killed by the basilisk yesterday; she assumed he hadn't recovered from the shock, so she said nothing and didn't deduct points, merely gave him a new withered fig.

This time, Silven didn't think of anything else, quickly trimming away the excess branches.

When everyone had nearly finished, Professor Sprout began handing out rolls of velvet cloth and asked: "Who knows why we insulate withered figs before winter?"

Hermione instinctively raised her hand.

"Excellent, Young Lady Granger."

"Cold weather causes the fruit to shrink and stop growing," Hermione said.

"Perfect. Gryffindor earns five points," Professor Sprout nodded approvingly.

"Does anyone know why they don't just move it to a warmer greenhouse?"

"An overly warm environment will also make the fruit stop growing." Hermione didn't even sit down before she spoke directly. "It's the same when they sense danger."

"Very good. Five more points to Gryffindor."

Perhaps because Silven had just added one hundred and thirty points, Professor Sprout's bonus rewards had shrunk a little too — from the original ten points per question down to five.

"Please note, these shrivelfigs are not fully ripe yet, so everyone must be extremely careful when handling them." Professor Sprout glanced at Silven once more before letting everyone get started, wrapping the cloth around the branches.

It was a rather tedious process with no real technical skill involved, so once Professor Sprout moved to the other side, the few of them picked up their conversation about Luohate again.

After learning the truth of last night from Silven, Harry and Ron angrily declared they would expose Luohate's lies.

"I suspect all those things he's claimed to have done are fake too." Ron said — after performing as a werewolf once in class, his goodwill toward Luohate had plummeted straight to rock bottom.

So embarrassing that for two days afterward he didn't dare speak to his classmates.

(You only performed it once.) Harry calmly adjusted his glasses at the side.

As Luohate's go-to classroom monster, Harry said he had long since gotten used to it — he could now even let out all sorts of howls without batting an eye.

Werewolves had the longest-drawn-out calls, yetis were heavier, female ghosts were short and shrill... all of it was experience.

"You're just biased against Professor Luohate." Hermione retorted. "His books were adopted as textbooks by the school — how could they be fake?"

"Who knows if Headmaster Dumbledore was just taken in."

"Only you would think that way."

Things seemed to have come full circle to the start of term — Ron and Hermione argued endlessly over Luohate.

Silven continued to ask Harry a few more questions about Luohate.

"Anything strange about Luohate?" Harry thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't think so — isn't he the same every day? Signing autographs for people around the school, going to find other professors to show off."

"Hagrid said Luohate even tried to teach him how to keep water demons from getting into wells, but Hogwarts doesn't have any water demons at all."

Mention Luohate, and Harry seemed to have grievances that would never run out.

Silven listened at the side, wrapping the last strip of cloth around the shrivelfig branch.

Judging by all this, Luohate's daily life didn't seem to have changed — not as though he'd been influenced by the diary.

(End of chapter)